Jeff Lieberman Movies

Jeff Lieberman, celebrated by horror film buffs for his imaginative cult favorites Squirm and Blue Sunshine, returns to filmmaking with this offbeat shocker. It's late October, and Douglas (Alexander Brickel), like most nine-year-olds, is looking forward to Halloween, especially trick or treating. Doug's mother (Amanda Plummer) has made him a costume based on a character from his favorite video game, Satan's Little Helper, and his big sister Jenna (Katheryn Winnick) will be home from college to collect candy with him. But Douglas is angry when Jenna's new boyfriend, Alex (Stephen Graham), tags along, and he soon ditches his sister to go trick or treating alone. While making the rounds, Douglas happens upon a serial killer (Joshua Annex) dressed up like a monster from his video game; Douglas admires the killer's grisly handiwork, and offers to act as his assistant, just like in the game. First Douglas leads the maniac to Alex, whom he soon kills, and then he brings him home, where Jenna and Mom think the masked killer is just Alex in his Halloween costume. Shot on digital video, Satan's Little Helper was screened at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Young Bastian again seeks refuge from the problems of the real world in the mystical land of Fantasia in this second, inferior sequel to the sleeper 1984 hit The Neverending Story. The set-up is familiar, as Bastian Bux (here played by Jason James Richter), who has moved to a new town, again rediscovers the magical book that serves as the portal to Fantasia and finds solace in the power of imagination. Unfortunately, Bastian is having problems with a group of bullies known as the Nasties, who discover the boy's secret and steal the book. Their meddling wreaks havoc, ultimately releasing Fantasia's bizarre creatures into Earth's dimension. Naturally, it's up to Bastian to retrieve the book and return the Luck Dragon, Rock Eater, talking tree, gnomes, and other assorted creatures to their rightful home. Visually less impressive than its predecessors, and extremely distant from the Michael Ende book that was the series' original inspiration, The Neverending Story 3 made little impression on audiences or critics, who generally agreed that the film was the weakest of the series. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Director Jeff Lieberman followed his horror-science fiction film Blue Sunshine with this effort, which rehashes many of the themes explored in Wes Craven's seminal horror work The Hills Have Eyes. The plot concerns a teenage land owner who heads for the mountains of Oregon with a deed to his new property and an RV full of young friends only to discover (to their extreme peril) that words on paper mean less than nothing up there... or, in the words of horticulture-loving park ranger George Kennedy, "Those mountains can't read, son." By nightfall, the youths learn the gravity of this warning, as they are set upon by a hulking Mongoloid in a knit cap and pilot's glasses who seems capable of being in two places at once. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Several former college students find their former drug experiences catching up with them in an unexpected and terrifying manner in this clever horror outing. Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King) is a bright but troubled man in his late twenties who graduated from Stanford University in 1968 but hasn't had much luck getting his life in order since then. One night Jerry attends a party with a few old college buddies, and is shocked when one of them, Frannie (Richard Crystal), suddenly loses all his hair in a single lump and goes on a bloody rampage. When circumstantial evidence makes Jerry a key suspect in the murders of three women at the party, he sets out to find out what happened, and with the help of another school friend, surgeon David Blume (Robert Walden), he discovers a link between Frannie's bizarre behavior and several similar incidents which recently occurred. In each case, the killers attended Stanford in the late '60s, and all had used Blue Sunshine, a potent but tainted variety of LSD sold by Ed Flemming (Mark Goddard), a bootleg acid chemist who is now a respected mainstream political candidate. Jerry struggles to stay one step ahead of the law as he tries to piece the story together, knowing that another victim of the drug could go insane at any moment. Blue Sunshine was directed by Jeff Lieberman, who has two other cult favorites to his credit, Squirm and Just Before Dawn. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Dependable character actor John Marley is afforded a rare starring role in Blade. Marley plays the title character, a world-weary private eye currently working on a murder case as a favor for a friend. The victim was the daughter of prominent conservative politico William Prince, whom Blade "knew when." While hunting for clues, Blade is bombarded by one disillusionment after another. The prime suspect turns out to be someone very, very close to Prince-who may have thought that, by eliminating his daughter, he was doing Prince an enormous favor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide