Mary Sellers Movies
- 1988
This Italian haunted-house outing begins with strange, paranormal emanations being picked up as radio signals by a group of Boston youths, who trace the signal to an abandoned estate. When they enter to investigate, they are attacked by the malevolent spectre of a young girl and her sinister-looking clown doll, who manages to decimate nearly the entire cast. The ensuing mayhem incorporates some of the goriest effects ever to grace a haunted house film, including axe murders, acid baths, impalements, and decapitations -- the nastiest of which features an unfortunate teen bisected by a falling pane of glass. Despite a fairly rich atmosphere and an ominous mood, this is really just a prolonged excuse for gruesome (though, admittedly, well-staged) giallo-style death scenes. After a spooky initial setup, the endlessly repeating musical ghost-message becomes profoundly annoying. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lara Wendel, Gregg Scott, (more)
Willem Dafoe plays Jesus Christ in this extraordinarily controversial adaptation of Nikos Kazantzaki's novel. The film depicts a sometimes reluctant, self-doubting Jesus, gradually coming to accept His divinity and the inexorability of His ultimate fate. The much-maligned sex scene with Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey) occurs as an hallucination experienced by Jesus as he suffers on the cross. This particular sequence was what infuriated the film's most rabid critics, but in fact it is just one of many iconoclastic musings to be found in the film and its source novel. Equally volatile are the intimations that, as a carpenter, Jesus indifferently shaped the crucifixes for other condemned prisoners long before his own fate was sealed, and that Judas (Harvey Keitel) was literally manipulated into betrayal by a Christ whose preoccuption with his own destiny compelled him to "use" others. None of these departures from the normal interpretation of the scriptures are offered as any more than theory; as such, it was accepted as food for thought by the more open-minded clerics and Biblical scholars who recommended the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, (more)
- 1991
Marco is a stuffy young man, but he loves his ne'er-do-well brother. When he doesn't hear from him for some time, he begins to search for him and finds that he has disappeared from sight. He looks up his brother's equally unconventional girlfriend and enlists her aid in the search. Along the way, they meet plenty of unusual people, and the strait-laced brother slowly loosens up. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margherita Buy, Giulio Scarpati, (more)
- 1993
- R
The dumping of radioactive waste spawns a mutant monster that attacks a nearby town. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
