Dennis Redfield Movies

This adaptation of the classic Shakespearean tale of an exiled ruler who happens to be a very powerful magician is set in a pre-Civil War Mississippi bayou, with the main characters as powerful slaveowners instead of heads-of-state. ~ Rovi

In this horror thriller, a psychically super-charged cop uses his unusual gifts to put a permanent end to a cop killer. Highlights include a few hallucination sequences, bad dreams and the trademark of Scanners-related films, an exploding head. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A young boy is forced to learn some adult lessons about violence in this made-for-television movie based on a true story. Kate Jackson and Gerald McRainey star as parents of an 11 year-old boy who shoots and kills some intruders who break into his home. The film shows how the boy and his family struggle to overcome the lingering anguish caused by the incident. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

In this Navy spoof, a mismatched bunch of sailors are sent to sea as the incompetent crew of the U. S. S. Substandard, a faulty, unfinished submarine. Little does the crew of the Substandard know that the government doesn't intend for them to make it back to shore, as they encounter all kinds of crazy problems. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

An adoptive parent discovers that some children are given up by their biological parents for very good reasons in this dark comedy. Ben Healy (John Ritter) is a pleasant but brow-beaten yuppie working for his father Big Ben (Jack Warden), a tyrannical sporting goods dealer. Ben would love to have a son, but his wife Flo (Amy Yasbeck) has been unable to conceive. Ben approaches less-than-scrupulous adoption agent Igor Peabody (Gilbert Gottfried) with his dilemma, and Igor presents Ben and Flo with a cute seven-year-old boy, Junior (Michael Oliver). However, Junior is hardly a model child; mean-spirited and incorrigible, the child leaves a path of serious destruction in his wake, and is even pen pals with Martin Beck (Michael Richards), a notorious serial killer. After the cat ends up in the hospital, the house catches on fire, and Junior displays his effective but unethical method for winning in Little League, Ben is having serious doubts about Junior when Beck escapes from jail and decides to kidnap his faithful correspondent, along with Junior's new mom. Problem Child proved to be a major box office success, spawning two sequels and a TV series. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this sci-fi/western film set two hundred years from now, a bank robber, Grange is captured and sentenced to the penal colony on the mining planet Proxima Centauri 3 where he meets bounty-hunter Walker, and the Colonel, a retired policeman from LA who was considered the best of his kind. Grange is a dangerous lunatic and Walker and the Colonel must team up to keep him from escaping. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The messages referred to in the title are those conveyed on a Ouija board. The heroine (Kathleen Beller) conjures up these messages, which indicate that her future happiness is gravely in doubt. In point of fact, the words she spells out on the board are I-AM-GOING-TO-KILL-YOU. A mystery figure from the woman's past intends to fulfill this prophecy--with a dagger. Material like this only works if the producers have faith in it; Deadly Messages appears to have been made by people who found the premise amusing. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Convicted murderer Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald had hoped that, by telling his side of the story to investigative journalist Joe McGinniss, the authorities would be persuaded of MacDonald's innocence. Instead, McGinniss ended up unswerving in his belief of MacDonald's guilt, and the result was the devastating best-seller Fatal Vision. In this two-part TV adaptation of McGinniss' book, Gary Cole plays MacDonald, a former Green Beret officer, while Frank Dent essays the role of McGinniss. MacDonald's wife and two children are brutally murdered in their Fort Bragg, North Carolina home on February 17, 1970. The prime suspect, MacDonald insists that the killings were committed by a gang of stoned-out hippies, a story that at first is accepted in toto by the doctor's father-in-law Freddy Kassab (Karl Malden). But after MacDonald is officially exonerated, Kassab notices several holes in his son-in-law's story, and becomes convinced that MacDonald was in fact the murderer. Through Kassab's persistence, as well as the uncovering of new forensic evidence, MacDonald is ultimately convicted for all three murders in 1979. Since the TV premiere of Fatal Vision on November 18 and 19, 1984, there has been a growing movement by MacDonald's sympathizers to discredit McGinniss' book and to retry the case--a movement that has been hampered time and again by MacDonald's own erratic behavior. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, the screenwriters behind the highly successful Alien, turned their attention to earthbound terrors with this creepy horror tale. Dead and Buried focuses on Dan Gillis (James Farentino), a man who has recently returned to his hometown of Potter's Bluff to be its sheriff. His job becomes difficult when a series of strangers who visit Potter's Bluff begin dying in violent and mysterious ways. To make matters worse, his wife, Janet (Melody Anderson), has begun to act strangely, taking an odd interest in voodoo and acting like she might be having an affair. As the murder victims pile up, Gillis discovers that all his troubles have an occult origin that has to do with the town's elderly mortician, Dobbs (Jack Albertson, in his final feature film role). Gillis gets to the bottom of the mystery, only to discover that the truth is much worse than he imagined. Despite effective direction and solid acting, Dead and Buried got lost in the shuffle of the early '80s horror boom and failed to click with the movie-going public. However, it later gained an audience via home video and cable and remains a minor cult favorite today thanks to its singular blend of creepy atmosphere and gruesome shocks. ~ Donald Guarisco, Rovi

A maniacal Vietnam veteran begins killing people in an Arizona town, and then holds the entire city ransom unless a millionaire (Stuart Whitman) delivers with the money. The 1977 film is also known as Ransom. ~ John Bush, Rovi

A young couple (Stephen McHattie, Kay Lenz) witness the murder of a police officer by the local sheriff (Lonny Chapman). When the sheriff figures out that they have seen him commit the crime, he tries to frame them as terrorists and the murderers of his deputy. ~ John Bush, Rovi

In this scenic drama, a young man spends his vacation hiking across seven European countries. Along the way he falls in love with a fellow traveler, a Norwegian girl. The affair is more than a summer fling, and at the journey's end, he must decide whether to remain with her or go back home. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

While tutoring fellow student Tom Povich (Richard Masur), who is attending Boatwright on a football scholarship, John-Boy (Richard Thomas) catches Tom cheating on a history exam. Though he'd sooner keep quiet, John-Boy is bound by the students' "honor code", which dictates that he himself will be given a failing grade unless he informs on Tom. This leads to an emotional denoument during a student council meeting, in which John-Boy tries to rationalize Tom's actions and prevent the boy from being expelled. And in a similar development, Jason (Jon Walmsley) wonders if he should "rat out" his brother Ben (Eric Scott), whom he has caught smoking a cigarette! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi