Susan Blanchard Movies

John Carpenter wrote and directed this science fiction thriller about a group of aliens who try to take over the world by disguising themselves as Young Republicans. Wrestler Roddy Piper stars as John Nada, a drifted who makes his way into an immense encampment for the homeless. There he stumbles upon a conspiracy concerning aliens who have hypnotized the populace through subliminal messages transmitted through television, magazines, posters, and movies. When Nada looks through special Ray-Bans developed by the resistance leaders, the aliens lose their clean-cut "Dan Quayle" looks and resemble crusty-looking reptiles. Nada joins the underground, teaming up with rebel-leader Frank (Keith David) to eradicate the lizard-like aliens from the body politic. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Proving that you can never guess what you'll find when you clean out the basement, a man of the cloth discovers that ultimate evil has made a hiding place in his cellar in this tale of terror. Father Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is a priest who discovers a strange object in a church basement -- a canister filled with a swirling and volatile green substance. With the help of Professor Birack (Victor Wong), Loomis discovers the startling truth about his find -- it seems that Satan, who is actually an alien life form, had a son, and the essence of the devil's spawn is trapped inside the canister. The evil spirit has been guarded by a group calling themselves "The Brotherhood of Sleep," but the spirit has the ability to free itself whenever it decides the time is right...and it seems that time is just around the corner. Prince of Darkness was directed by horror master John Carpenter; he also wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Martin Quatermass. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The fourth season of Magnum, P.I gets under way with one of the series' most famous and best-remembered episodes. Honoring his self-promise to spend each July 4th by himself on the high seas, Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) ends up stranded in the middle of the ocean after his surf-ski capsizes. With his friends unaware of his plight (except for some disturbing premonitions), Magnum must somehow keep his head above water until help arrives. . .if it ever does. Throughout this terrifying ordeal, Magnum experiences flashbacks to the more traumatic incidents in his past, including the funeral of his Naval-officer father in 1951, and his brief wartime marriage in Vietnam. Many viewers consider this to be Magnum, P.I.'s finest hour; few will hold it lesser esteem. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This light-hearted western was a spinoff of the 1957-1962 series Maverick, and recounted the adventures of legendary gambler/troublemaker Brett Maverick's young Harvard-educated cousin, Ben Maverick. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

James Garner took time off from The Rockford Files to star in the "retro" TV movie The New Maverick, written by Rockford stalwart Juanita Bartlett. Garner steps into the role of western gambler Brett Maverick as though the 20 years since the original TV series had never passed; he is costarred, as ever, with Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick. Charles Frank is introduced as the Maverick boys' young nephew Ben, a Harvard dropout and gambler-in-training who would carry the action when this film graduated into a brief TV series titled Young Maverick. The plot involves a train holdup, stolen gatling guns, a stupid politico (Eugene Roche), and a gang of Eastern gangsters led by horse-hating George Loros. Susan Sullivan costars in The New Maverick as Poker Alice, a character who was later given a pilot film of her own. The New Maverick is in its own modest way just as much fun as Mel Gibson's expensive Maverick feature film of 1994--which also costarred the evergreen James Garner. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi