Amy Steel Movies

As the "black sheep" of her wealthy family, struggling artist and single mother Britt Calhoun (Dana Delany) is reluctant to return home for the Christmas holidays. Finally persuaded to do so, Britt finds that her imperious mother Maggie (Doris Roberts) is still more concerned about "what people will think" than what people may be like inside. Even so, Britt is determined to mend fences with Maggie, if for no other reason than to convince the father of her child that she can lead a stable home life. But a dark cloud hangs over the Yuletide proceedings: Maggie is in the first stages of Alzheimer's, and it may never be possible to stage a reconciliation. Produced for the Hallmark channel, A Time to Remember debuted November 23, 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Television fans fed up with the state of TV talk shows might get a kick from the 1992 Perry Mason TV movie The Case of the Reckless Romeo. The title character, a video personality who's just written a tell-all autobiography, is played by none other than Geraldo Rivera. When the future O.J. Simpson-obsessed talk host is murdered, actress Amy Steel is accused of murder. Mason (Raymond Burr) sets about to prove her innocence. When first telecast on May 6, 1992, The Case of the Reckless Romeo was advertised with the tag line "Geraldo gets killed!" Reports of dancing in the streets remain unconfirmed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Whoever hit upon the idea that What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? would make a good TV movie remake forgot one essential fact. The original 1962 Baby Jane was at best a ludicrous melodrama, which only reached the level of art thanks to the bravura performances of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. This time around, real-life sisters Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave play, respectively, invalid former film star Blanche Hudson and her insanely jealous sister "Baby" Jane Hudson. As before, Jane launches a campaign of terror against her helpless sister, all the while planning her own show business comeback with a smarmy musician (John Glover). Part of the problem with this misfire remake, beyond its overall lack of tension, is the character makeup: With her head shaved, Vanessa looks more like Susan Powter than a former cinema queen, while Lynn, decked out in garish "little girl" makeup, resembles Bozo the Clown. The 1991 Whatever Happened to Baby Jane should be seen at least once just to satisfy the curiosity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Home Fires was first presented in two parts over the Showtime pay-cable service in August of 1987. The film purported to trace four days in the life of an "average" family. Right. The father is an attorney, facing a hostile judge in a case wherein poisoned workers are suing a craven plastics company. The lawyer's ex-wife is a hospitalized schizophrenic who makes unlimited phone calls to her children. His present wife is a painter who has had an affair with a fellow art student. The highlight of Part One of Home Fires is a masturbation scene involving the family's youngest son; just wait til we get to Part Two (see entry 126257 for details). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

April Fool's Day just happens to be the birthday of rich college student Buffy (Deborah Foreman), so she invites a group of friends from Vassar over to her family's island getaway to spend the weekend partying. Though some practical-joke shenanigans on the ferry over from the mainland lead to unexpected bloodshed and put a damper on the festivities, Buffy unleashes a flood of more benign pranks on her guests, setting a tone of giddy abandon. With plenty of randy guys and gals on hand and no parental supervision, it isn't long before drunken escapades ensue. As the weekend progresses, however, guests begin to disappear mysteriously, and before long Buffy and friends find themselves huddling in terror in their remote getaway. The next ferry isn't due until Monday, and the partygoers aren't sure whether any of them will make it that long. The mostly Canadian cast of April Fool's Day includes Leah King Pinsent, daughter of actor/director Gordon Pinsent, and Amy Steel, a veteran of the second and fourth Friday the 13th installments. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Hockey-masked killer Jason Vorhees returns to terrorize a lakeside family and their rowdy teen neighbors in this fourth installment of the long-running slasher series. After the events of Friday the 13th, Part 3, Jason's seemingly lifeless body is brought to the morgue, where horny attendant Axel (Bruce Mahler) is trying to score with foxy Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman). The pair quickly meet a grisly end. Meanwhile, at Crystal Lake, estranged wife Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman) and her kids -- young Tommy (Corey Feldman) and teenaged Trish (Kimberly Beck) -- find their quiet invaded by a group of hard-partying kids moving into the rental house next door. The youngsters include curious virgin Sara (Barbara Howard), hot-to-trot Samantha (Judie Aronson), and nebbish Jimmy (Crispin Glover). Tommy, a monster makeup enthusiast, enjoys watching the scantily clad young ladies through his window, while Trish toys with the idea of joining in their revelries. Also lurking around the area is Rob (Erich Anderson), who claims to be hunting bear but actually has mysterious ties to the events of Friday the 13th, Part 2. As the house full of teens begins to pair off -- aided by the addition of local twins Tina (Camilla More) and Terri (Carey More) to the mix -- an unseen killer begins to pick them off one by one. The bloodshed climaxes with a tense showdown in which Tommy disguises himself as a bald, lumpy boyhood version of Jason in hopes of distracting the relentless psychopath who hunts him. Feldman would return for a cameo in Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning, only to be replaced by another actor in a grown-up version of the role. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Exposed is the film in which concert violinist Rudolf Nureyev grabs his bow and "plays" the lissome body of Nastassja Kinski. This may well stand as the silliest bit of erotica in screen history, but in the context of the film it's a model of restraint. We're asked to believe that Kinski is Elizabeth Carlson, a Wisconsin girl who has come to the big city to make it as a pianist or model. We're also supposed to be convinced that Nureyev is part-time espionage agent Daniel Jelline, who is determined to bring terrorist Rivas (Harvey Keitel) to justice. Much of the film takes place in Paris, where at least the scenery is lovely. The various plotlines and characters never quite congeal. Despite the fact that director James Toback is given sole screenplay credit, the film seems more like a "committee" project. To its credit, Exposed is never dull; with that cast, how could anyone fall asleep? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two months after the events of the original Friday the 13th, Alice (Adrienne King), the lone survivor or Mrs. Vorhees' killing spree, meets a grisly end in her city apartment. Five years later, a new group of co-eds converges near Camp Crystal Lake, scene of the original massacre and the drowning of Jason Vorhees that preceded it. This time around, the horny collegians attend a nearby training school for camp counselors. As half the group parties in town, an unseen assailant picks off the other half one by one. Only when camp leader Paul (John Furey) and his girlfriend, Ginny (Amy Steel), return to camp do they uncover the identity of their stalker -- none other than Jason (Warrington Gillette) himself, alive but grotesquely deformed as a result of his childhood drowning. Flashbacks chronicle Jason's behind-the-scenes activities in the first film (perhaps explaining how his mother was able to throw the dead bodies of muscular youths through windows with such apparent ease). The young couple's only hope to defeat the fiend lies in psych major Ginny's insights in Jason's mental state. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Generally considered to be the foremost example of Italian Gothic horror, this darkly atmospheric black-and-white chiller put director Mario Bava on the international map and made the bewitching Barbara Steele a star. Steele plays Princess Asa, a high priestess of Satan who is gruesomely executed in 1600s Moldavia by having a spiked mask hammered into her face. Before she dies, Asa vows revenge on the family who killed her and returns from the grave two centuries later to keep her promise. In a striking resurrection scene replete with bats, scorpions and fog, Asa rises from the tomb to claim her bloody vengeance. With vampires, bubbling flesh, dank crypts, undead servants and torch-bearing mobs, the plot is a little ripe, but the visuals are Bava's primary consideration. The atmosphere is so heavy and the imagery so dense that the film becomes nearly too rich in texture, but the sheer, ghastly beauty of it all is entrancing. Although this was only the second of Bava's twenty-six films as director, it is undoubtedly his best and the one upon which most of his considerable reputation rests. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide