Lisa Blount Movies

A political filmmaker finds himself in Long Island for a weekend where he finds himself entangled with a high-living, jet set crowd. At first it is exciting, but soon he finds himself disillusioned by their shallowness. The film contains an early performance by Robert De Niro. Footage from Sam's Song was later re-edited into a completely different movie, known as both The Swap and Line of Fire, in which a man investigates the death of his brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a divorced and irresponsible motocross racer grows up as he prepares to run the Big Race. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Secrets of the Phantom Caverns is a goofy fantasy filmed on the cheap by the ever-canny Don Sharp. The story involves a team of anthropologists and military men who busy themselves exploring a serpentine system of subterranean caves. They discover of lost race of Albinos, which wreaks havoc upon the surface dwelling humans. The British actor Robert Powell and Timothy Bottoms star. According to some sources, Sharp and co. approached the production with extreme carelessness; thanks to an unfortunate accident, a large percentage of the cast and crew were almost fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide in the caves where the movie was filmed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This comedy is set 15 years after the final nuclear holocaust and centers upon two fellows who have been stuck in their fathers' elaborate bomb shelter since the bombs began to fall. They had plenty of food, clothing (from the 1940s), and necessities, but their only entertainment was a huge set of pulp mystery novels by such writers as Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. By the time the two young men, Phillip and Marlowe finally emerge from the shelter in 2010, they have become "hard-boiled" detectives. They manage to find an old car and head off down the ruined roads looking for action. Along the way, they see beautiful, but hard-as-nails blonde Miles Archer and pick her up. She ends up robbing them and abandoning them. In her haste, she drops a set of keys--the keys to the last nuclear warhead. Whoever holds them, holds the world in their hands and suddenly the young men find themselves pursued by assorted weirdos, including man-eating hippies, looking for the ultimate power. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Mark Lindsay Chapman (no relation to the murderer of John Lennon) stars in the made-for-TV The Annihilator. If the title sounds faintly reminiscent of The Terminator, it might just be more than a coincidence. The plot involves an army of mindless automatons, programmed to kill, kill, kill. Chapman plays a reporter whose efforts to halt the robot army are flummoxed by the fact that he himself is a fugitive from the law. The Annihilator premiered on April 7, 1986. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

This psychological drama is set in the lonely desert flats of rural Nevada, and centers on the quiet torment of a young man who thinks about leaving his contemptuous, cheating wife and moving to Reno before he goes over the edge completely. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Until its last 10 minutes or so, this filmed biography of controversial recording star Jerry Lee Lewis plays like a live-action cartoon. As played by Dennis Quaid, "the killer" is a very mixed-up individual: a saintly sinner, a world-wise naif, a skilled performer with zero sense of discipline, a loving husband who uses his wife for a punching bag. The story takes place during the years 1956 through 1958, as Lewis rises to the top of the charts with such hits as "Crazy Arms," "A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," and the title tune. Along the way, he falls in love with his second cousin Myra (Winona Ryder), eventually marrying the girl. When it is revealed that Myra is only 13 years old, Lewis is condemned as a molester and pervert by the public (his disastrous tour of England during this crisis is depicted in hilarious Tex Avery fashion). After establishing a brisk, satirical tone through most of the proceedings, the film plummets into heavy dramatics in its final portions, jarring disastrously with all that has gone before. Otherwise, Quaid is terrific as Lewis (expertly lip-synching to the original records,) and Ryder is equally good as the long-suffering Myra. Featured in the cast are Alec Baldwin as Jerry's cousin Jimmy Swaggart (the same!), Michael St. Gerard as Lewis' great rival Elvis, and Steve Allen as himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An independent American thriller of identity and personality. Joe Prince (Colin Firth) is a park ranger and an artist who falls deeply in love with Cynthia (Lisa Zane), a mysterious woman he meets in his park. They are (too) hastily married, and the day before the honeymoon Joe finds Cynthia's wedding ring holding down a goodbye note that simply says "I don't know who you are." Joe tracks his reticent bride to nearby Los Angeles, and the trail leads deeper into the underground of the city. Helped in his research by his friend Elijah (Billy Zane, Lisa's brother), Joe starts to learn some pretty unsavory things about Cynthia. Available in PG and R-rated versions. ~ John Voorhees, All Movie Guide

Keith Michell dominates this episode in the role of Dennis Stanton, ex-jewel thief turned insurance investigator. While probing into a theft and double murder, Dennis decides to use his own criminal knowhow to trap the culprit. At the center of the intrigue is a rare silver dollar, an icy dowager, and a few random suspicious-looking gentlemen with accents. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a single mother comes in to help take care of a man's ill wife, he becomes interested in her for more than the care she is rendering. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Satan opens an antique shop in a small town and lures the residents into evil actions in this supernatural chiller. Based on a novel by the prolific Stephen King, the film bears many of the author's trademarks, such as the New England setting and the focus on regular people tempted by the forces of supernatural evil. Here, the enticements toward bad behavior comes from the "Needful Things" shop, owned by new resident Leland Gaunt (Max von Sydow). Gaunt's shop offers an odd collection of goods, each of which happens to be the object of desire of a local resident. Instead of money, however, Gaunt demands that townspeople perform a series of simple pranks. He has a plan, and these actions escalate until the town is at violent war with itself. The residents are brought to life by a talented cast, led by von Sydow's suave devil and including Ed Harris as the local sheriff, J.T. Walsh as a corrupt politician, and Amanda Plummer as a seemingly innocent baker. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide