Aimee Brooks

A real-life series of killings that held Los Angeles, CA, in the grip of fear during the late '70s provides the inspiration for this tense crime drama. Kenneth Bianchi (C. Thomas Howell) is a nebbishy security guard who lives with his mother in Rochester, NY, and dreams of becoming a police officer. After Bianchi's application to join the Rochester police is turned town, he takes his mother's advice and moves out to Glendale, CA, where she arranges for him to stay with his cousin, Angelo Buono (Nicholas Turturro), who works in auto repair. When he's unable to get a position with the Glendale Police Department, Bianchi steps outside the law and, claiming to have a degree in psychology and a license to practice, sets up shop as a counselor. While Bianchi never had much luck with women in Rochester, Buono gives him some advice and sets him up on a few dates; soon Bianchi has a string of girlfriends, though things become complicated when one of his steady girls, Claire Shelton (Allison Lange), becomes pregnant and moves in with him. As Bianchi becomes increasingly obsessed with sex, he and his cousin join forces to set up a prostitution ring, which quickly earns them the enmity of a group of career criminals. When Bianchi and Buono discover that they have been double crossed by one of the hookers in their stable, the two men rape and murder the woman in the back of a car; Bianchi discovers he enjoys the thrill of killing, and soon he and Buono begin committing a string of sexually tinged murders throughout the Los Angeles area, with the press soon dubbing the culprit "The Hillside Strangler." The Hillside Strangler was one of two identically titled films based on the same true story that were released in 2004; the other was directed by Chris Fisher and starred Clifton Collins Jr. and Tomas Arana as Bianchi and Buono. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The third in the tongue-in-cheek horror series liberally cribbed from Gremlins (1984) features an early performance from future heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and was filmed simultaneously with its follow-up. This time out, it's an urban family who picks up one of the fast-multiplying beasties while on vacation, although they are warned by Charlie (Don Opper), a veteran of the creatures' earlier attacks. Once widower Clifford (John Calvin) and his kids Annie (Annie Brooks) and Johnny (Christian and Joseph Cousins) return home to their apartment building, the critter begins to reproduce, and the tenement becomes overrun with diminutive, hungry killers. The first to go is cruel superintendent Frank (Geoffrey Blake), but others soon follow, including the unscrupulous landlord, whose son Josh (DiCaprio) finds romance with Annie. With the appearance of the resourceful Charlie and the heroics of Clifford, the critters' days are soon numbered. Critters 3 was directed by Kristine Peterson, a veteran of the Roger Corman school of no-budget genre filmmaking. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide