John Barnett Movies

A woman preparing for the biggest day in her life finds her wedding plans thwarted by his well-intending brother and his painfully immature friends in a matrimonial comedy with a decidedly Samoan twist. Sione is about to get married, but he knows that when his brother and his friends show up chaos will be quick to follow. Though the rowdy foursome are all well into their thirties, their reckless behavior suggests a maturity level of sixteen at best. When Sione bans the entire group from his upcoming wedding, they are forced to find dates in hopes that the bride will relent if they each arrive in the company of a true lady. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The New Zealand-filmed Wild Horses stars Keith Aberdein as an itinerant logger. Aberdein is hired by a national park to help corral a herd of roaming horses. In addition to his inability to carry out the job at hand, he also manages to scare off most of the deer in the area. This incurs the wrath of a group of venison hunters, led by Bruno Lawrence who take revenge by killing off some of the horses. Aberdein arranges a truce with Lawrence order to capture a wild stallion that he's got his heart set on. But the feud erupts again before long, leading to a violent showdown. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Grant Tilly stars as Colin, a fortyish New Zealand schoolteacher. Colin is promoted to principal, which normally would be cause for celebration. Unfortunately, the teacher is undergoing several midlife crises, not least of which is his obsession with gorgeous fellow teacher Judy (Donna Akersten). At a dinner party hosted by Colin and his blase wife Elizabeth (Dorothy McKegg), the truth is painfully--and hilariously--brought to the forefront. Middle Age Spread is based on a popular play by New Zealand author Roger Hall. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Alternating between urban affluence and rural squalor in its New Zealand setting, this contemporary update of the Brothers Grimm tells the story of a boy and his sister whose placement into very different adoptive homes can't destroy the psychic bond that connects them. An impressionistic opening scene suggests that Jack and Dora's mother has gone off her rocker; soon, the children are packed off to an orphanage, where Dora is adopted by the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Birch (Brenda Simmons and Gilbert Goldie) and Jack falls into the hands of grim farmer Clarrie (Tony Barry) and his bottled-up wife Bernice (Elizabeth Hawthorne). Years later, the teen-aged Jack (Alexis Arquette) suffers through continuing abuse from his proud, sardonic parents and their quartet of vacant-eyed, black-clad daughters. Using an invention that helps focus his nascent hypnotic powers, the lad unleashes his revenge on the family and sets off to find his real sister. Dora Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, meanwhile, has grown up within the comforts of a middle-class home but can't escape her outsider status -- or her special powers, which allow her to sense not only Jack's presence, but also the voices of the dead. With the help of Teddy (Bruno Lawrence), an older telepathic man who wants to bed her, Dora finally finds her way to Jack. But his unhappy childhood has already inflicted too much damage, poisoning the siblings' hopes of a joyful reunion with their birth parents and setting the stage for the savage vengeance of Jack's stepsisters. Garth Maxwell, who previously directed the award-winning gay short Beyond Gravity, made his feature debut with Jack Be Nimble. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Dead Kids, aka Strange Behavior, is a creepy exercise from director Michael Laughlin--who conceived this as part one of an abortive "Strange Trilogy" which also included 1983's Strange Invaders. Although lensed in New Zealand, the film is set in a sleepy American town, in which a series of gory murders committed by local teenagers are linked to a twisted brainwashing scheme by a deranged behavioral psychologist (note irony please). Despite some humorous details (e.g. one killer dons a Tor Johnson mask) and a nostalgia for '50s pulp horrors (not to mention a fondness for splattery death scenes), the disparate plot elements don't come together as well as they should, failing to live up to the premise's potential for guilty chuckles or gasps of horror. Fiona Lewis is sexually menacing as the mad doc's assistant, but Louise Fletcher's wasted role may make viewers pine for Nurse Ratched. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

Actor David Hemmings made one of his periodic forays into directing with the lightning-paced Race For the Yankee Zephyr. The film pits deer hunters against a group of unscrupulous businessmen. Their mutual goal is a reserve of gold, hidden somewhere in the Australian wilds. Ken Wahl and Leslie Ann Warren are the Hollywood-bred "box office insurance" in this Australian/New Zealand coproduction. Race for the Yankee Zephyr was first shown in America via pay-cable, where it carried no rating but was preceded with a warning vis-a-vis violence and strong language. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi