Dead Can Dance Movies

A woman fleeing the man in her life discovers a city of women in this revisionist western. Chrysty (Amy Brenneman) is passing through the Nevada desert when she happens upon the small town of Silver, currently populated entirely by women and children, while the men in the community are gone -- working on a dam building project. When Chrysty discovers June (Bridgette Wilson) alone and in labor, she helps her as she gives birth; Chrysty opts to stay around, and she takes a job delivering milk. Silver is ruled by McGill (Kirstie Alley), the village's self-appointed sheriff who doesn't trust Chrysty; McGill discovers that Chrysty is actually an Idaho housewife running away from her husband, West (Angus MacFadyen). However, June's husband Rip (James Wilder), back in town after the birth of a child that may not be his and troubled by his wife's chronic infidelity, has fallen in love with Chrysty, and when West arrives to Silver to retrieve his spouse, Rip opts to fight for her hand. Nevada also features Saffron Burrows as June's sister-in-law, and Dee Wallace Stone and Kathy Najimy as a rough-and-tumble lesbian couple. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as "breath of life" or "blessing," Baraka is Ron Fricke's impressive follow-up to Godfrey Reggio's non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was cinematographer and collaborator on Reggio's film, and for Baraka he struck out on his own to polish and expand the photographic techniques used on Koyaanisqatsi. The result is a tour-de-force in 70mm: a cinematic "guided meditation" (Fricke's own description) shot in 24 countries on six continents over a 14-month period that unites religious ritual, the phenomena of nature, and man's own destructive powers into a web of moving images. Fricke's camera ranges, in meditative slow motion or bewildering time-lapse, over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Ryoan-Ji temple in Kyoto, Lake Natron in Tanzania, burning oil fields in Kuwait, the smoldering precipice of an active volcano, a busy subway terminal, tribal celebrations of the Masai in Kenya, chanting monks in the Dip Tse Chok Ling monastery...and on and on, through locales across the globe. To execute the film's time-lapse sequences, Fricke had a special camera built that combined time-lapse photography with perfectly controlled movements of the camera. In one evening sequence a desert sky turns black, and the stars roll by, as the camera moves slowly forward under the trees. The feeling is like that of viewing the universe through a powerful telescope: that we are indeed on a tiny orb hurtling through a star-filled void. The film is complemented by the hybrid world-music of Michael Stearns. ~ Anthony Reed, Rovi

A high-end apartment complex is the setting for demonic disaster in this like-minded splatter sequel to the 1986 cult hit Demons. A spoiled young woman named Sally (Coralina Cataldi Tassoni) is hosting her own birthday party in her apartment. Other characters in the building include a man (David Knight) and his pregnant wife (Nancy Brilli), a little boy who is alone for the evening, and a gym full of workout maniacs. In each apartment, televisions are all tuned to a horror film in which a group of young people find evidence of demons which precedes their becoming possessed. Upset that an ex-boyfriend is coming to her party, Sally goes into her room and turns on the film. A demon bursts through her television. Moments later, the possessed Sally enters the party and slaughters all of her guests, turning them into demons. The possession spreads throughout the building as tenant after tenant is transformed, leading to a furious battle between the exercise fanatics and a pack of demons. The young husband manages to stay alive and makes a desperate attempt to save his wife -- who is being tormented by the now-possessed little boy. He rescues her after the demon child gives "birth" to a Gremlins-style demon and the couple make a dangerous attempt to rappel down the outside of the tower with the raving, drooling Sally in hot pursuit. ~ Patrick Legare, Rovi