Doug Savant Movies

After sitting on the shelf for some time, Teen Wolf was released on the heels of the hugely successful Back to the Future in an attempt to cash in on the huge popularity of star Michael J. Fox. Teen Wolf chronicles the plight of Fox as a small-town nerd who can't seem to score a basket on the court or a point with his dream girl. Things change, however, once he discovers his family's hereditary secret, lycanthrope. As he begins to look hairier and hairier, his team begins to win basketball games and his dream girl begins to show interest in his unusual talent. His story does not progress without complications, however. His best friend, an opportunistic weasel, begins to exploit him beyond his limits of toleration, and his dream girl is captive to the requisite bully boyfriend, who, of course, captains the arch-rival basketball team. And then, to top it all off, Fox's other best friend is in love with him. Unbelievably, this film was a box-office success and eventually inspired an even worse sequel, Teen Wolf Too, several years later -- a film which Fox wisely declined. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

Character actor Charles Martin Smith directed this quirky horror film about a dead rock star who wreaks vengeance on a small town. When a rock musician is banned from performing at a high school Halloween dance and ends up perishing in a hotel fire, he vows vengeance on the town and comes back from beyond the grave to obliterate the population. He does this through one of his most rabid fans, the nerdy Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price), a high school outsider. He is such a fan that he plays the rock star's final album "Songs in the Key of Death" in reverse, looking for instructions on how to live his life. The rock star willingly obliges Eddie with helpful hints and soon Eddie is able to face down the high school bullies and gain the attention of an attractive girl. But soon Eddie begins to suspect that the ghost is using him. With the ghost intent on destroying the town, Eddie uses his newfound self-confidence to stand up to the ghost and save the town from destruction. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

American-born French film director Bob Swaim directed this sordid tale of greed, deception, machinations and murder. The darkly beautiful Meg Tilly stars as Olivia Lawrence, member of the Hamptons social elite and heiress to a vast fortune, who becomes attracted to dangerous newcomer Tim Whalen (Rob Lowe). She unwittingly falls into his web of deceit, as he and her stepfather (John Glover) plot her murder in order to gain the $3,000,000 in her trust fund. Inspired in plot by the film noir classics of the '40s, Masquerade lacks the style and originality of the originals. The film noticeably lacks suspense; there is no sustained tension, and many of the characters seem included simply for the sake of bizarreness. However, Tilly manages to carry the film all on her own with her considerable talent and natural screen presence. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide

Shaking the Tree is an ensemble dramedy about four male friends living in Chicago, pushing 30, who help each other through a series of crises. Barry (Arye Gross) is a real estate salesman and a huge White Sox fan who's nervous about his impending wedding to Michelle (Christina Haag). When he presses her about her sexual past, he finds out she once slept with one of his pals. Duke (Steven Wilde, who co-wrote the script with director Duane B. Clark) was forced to give up boxing due to an injury, and is unhappy with his life as a womanizing bartender. Sully (Gale Hansen) comes from a wealthy family. He is also a womanizer, and his gambling problem is spiraling out of control. When he loses ten grand to some shady characters, his family refuses to bail him out. Michael (Doug Savant of Melrose Place) is a college professor with a massively pregnant wife, Kathleen (Courteney Cox), and his fear of becoming a father leads him to consider an affair with a seductive student, Brigette (played by actor Gale Hansen's wife, Brittney Hansen). After Cox became a success on television with Friends, the film was re-released on video with the photo on the box changed to feature the actress prominently, although she plays a supporting role in the film. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Aftermath: A Test of Love begins where most TV movies end. Based on fact (as recorded in Gary Kinder's book Victim), the story revolves around the family of Richard Chamberlain, an aloof obstetrician. The family falls victim to a violent, random crime, depicted in gruesome detail. Chamberlain's wife is murdered, and one of his sons is seriously wounded. Surviving this ordeal, Chamberlain must now try to hold his remaining loved ones together emotionally and attempt to reassemble his own battered psyche. The true events which inspired Aftermath: A Test of Love occurred in the 1970s in Ogden, Utah, where this TV movie was partially filmed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A nighttime soap opera about the lives, careers, trials and tribulations of a group of young people living in an apartment building in the trendy neighborhood of Melrose Place. The show was a spin off of Beverly Hills 90210 and starred Heather Locklear as the scheming Amanda Woodward, head of her own advertising agency and owner of the apartment building.

In Maniac Cop (1988), we were introduced to a disfigured psycho law enforcement officer. It wasn't enough that this revenge-driven fiend killed and mutilated his victims: he also kept their pelts and scalps as trophies. The part was play by Robert D'Zar in the first two Maniac Cop flicks; D'Zar is back for Badge of Silence: Maniac Cop 3, in which he continues his reign of terror, as the good cops endeavor to put an end to his activities. By way of a plot, a hush-hush conspiracy is thrown into the proceedings. The slash-and-gashfest was written by Larry (It's Alive!) Cohen, while the musical score was by no less than Jerry Goldsmith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the definitive, landmark shows of the 1990s, "90210" quickly became an important fixture on the FOX and in the popular discourse of adolescents and young adults. The third season's main characters, Dylan, Kelly, Donna, Steve, David, Andrea and twins Brandon and Brenda all attended West Beverly Hills High School. Brandon and Brenda Walsh and their parents, transplants from Minneapolis were the stable nuclear family with strong values; their home was a safe haven for the whole gang and the center of much of the drama. The show dealt with a steady stream of love triangles and other romantic entanglements and occasionally touched on more serious issues as well.

Dedicated to Tomoyuki Tanaka (1910-1997), who produced the 1954 original and sequels, the Devlin/Emmerich interpretation displays a redesign of Godzilla, now a large lizard mutated after fallout from French nuclear tests. A blinding flash of white light fills the Eastern sky. Thousands of miles away, the Pacific Ocean churns, engulfing a freighter. On another part of the globe, giant footsteps plow a path through miles of Panamanian forests, Tahitian villages, and Jamaican beaches. In the Ukraine, biologist Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is examining the impact of radiation on Chernobyl earthworms. Colonel Hicks (Kevin Dunn) and a military team escort Niko to check out giant claw marks on the beached freighter; they're joined by paleontologists Elsie Chapman (Vicki Lewis) and Mendel Craven (Malcolm Danare). Blood and giant-size footprints indicate "some sort of enormous reptile." French secret agent Philippe Roache talks to the freighter's only survivor, who keeps repeating, "Gojira...Gojira." Tatopoulos et al arrive in Manhattan's Fulton Fish Market where Godzilla surfaces, moving on to the NYC financial district where Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner) is speaking. Ambitious Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo), who works for TV news anchor Charles Caiman (Harry Shearer), is Niko's former girlfriend, and she uses this to her professional advantage. As the wave of destruction continues, Niko and Roache track the creature through the evacuated city and discover Godzilla's eggs about to hatch in Madison Square Garden. They are followed by Audrey and TV cameraman Victor "Animal" Palotti (Hank Azaria), and soon the hatching Godzilla offspring prowl the Garden corridors, leading to a final showdown. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A federal agent is demoted to a less challenging assignment, only to have it become the most dangerous mission of her life in this action-thriller. Alex McGregor (Mariel Hemingway) is a Secret Service agent who once guarded the President of the United States, Jonathan Hayes (Gregory Harrison). But after a series of misunderstandings following an attempt on the President's life, McGregor has been reassigned to oversee security for Hayes' teenaged daughter, Jess (Monica Keena). Jess has been chafing under the pressures of having a team of agents following her everywhere, so when she makes plans to go on a white-water rafting trip, the President requests a minimal compliment of Secret Service agents. This proves to be a mistake when Jess and her companions are kidnapped by a gang of right-wing terrorists. McGregor is forced to join forces with scruffy wilderness guide Grant Carlson (Doug Savant) in order to find Jess and return her to safety. Though set in the United States, First Daughter was shot in Australia, and had its premier on American television. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide