Parasomnia (2008)

Film Title: Parasomnia
Also known as: Dreams of the Sleepwalker (Germany)
Released: October 17, 2008 (Screamfest Film Festival)
Directed by: William Malone
Written by: William Malone
Starring: Dylan Purcell, Cherilyn Wilson & Patrick Kilpatrick

Plot: A young girl suffering from parasomnia, a disease that causes her to literally sleep her life away, awaking only rarely, becomes the object of affection for an art student who kidnaps her from the hospital rather than let her become a guinea pig for scientific research. But little does he know that this "sleeping beauty" is being terrorized by a mass-murderer in her dreams, which the monster is now making a reality.

IMDb: 5.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: No score
My Score: 3/5

Sometimes called William Malone's Parasomnia, writer/director William Malone independently financed this project with the help of his friends. And while the end product occasionally shows its low-budget pedigree, it succeeds more than it fails, especially as an independent film. After a fantastic opening sequence in which Sean Young (her only appearance in the movie) jumps off the top of a building followed by the camera, with the impact being felt by both, we are introduced to Dylan Purcell, an art student who makes ends meet working at a record store. After his girlfriend leaves him and clears out his apartment, he visits his friend in rehab at the local hospital who tells him about a beautiful girl (Cherilyn Wilson) suffering from parasomnia, and the serial killer (Patrick Kilpatrick) who lives in the room next to her. When he stops by the girl's room he becomes instantly fascinated and smitten with her, despite being shooed away by her doctor (Timothy Bottoms). He begins visiting her more and more frequently, even sharing music with her via headphones while she's sleeping. He discovers that she is going to be transferred to a disreputable sleep lab as a test subject and kidnaps her instead, bringing her home with him. Very quickly he discovers that Klipatrick, who believes that she belongs to him, will stop at nothing to get her back. Jeffrey Combs (a personal favorite) and Jeff Doucette co-star as a pair of police officers investigating the kidnapping and the series of murders that ensue and John Landis has a small cameo as a department store manager. Kilpatrick, who has made a career of playing the bad guy, is sufficiently menacing as the villain, imbuing him with a malicious intelligence and charisma. Wilson is cute as a button, excelling in the scenes where she is filled with child-like wonder with the world she so rarely sees. She and Purcell have a nice, believable chemistry despite the awkward nature of their relationship. The early scenes of the two of them together really give the movie its heart, a heart mostly abandoned by the halfway point when the film becomes more style over substance. That style, however, is intriguing and inventive, full of surreal dreamscapes and a healthy dose of blood and guts. If watched in succession, you can see the evolution of Malone's visual style from House on Haunted Hill to Feardotcom to Parasomnia, his last, but perhaps best, film to date. The independent nature of the movie has largely meant obscurity for this one and a lot of people probably don't even know it exists, which is a shame since its much better than the bigger-budgeted Feardotcom.

Feardotcom (2002)

Film Title: Feardotcom
Released: August 30, 2002
Directed by: William Malone
Written by: Josephine Coyle based on a story by Moshe Diamant
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone & Stephen Rea

Plot: A police detective teams up with a Department of Health researcher to discover the reason behind a rash of deaths and they discover a website is at the center of the mystery.

IMDb: 3.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 3/100
My Score: 1.5/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Feardotcom is director William Malone's fourth feature film and his first since his version of House on Haunted Hill in 1999. Stephen Dorff is an NYPD detective investigating a series of mysterious deaths. He crosses paths with Natascha McElhone, a Department of Health investigator, and the two team up to get to the bottom of things. During their investigation, they realize that the only connection between the victims is that they all have damaged computers. Dorff contacts Amelia Curtis, a forensic computer analyst and friend, to see what she can retrieve from the hard drives. She discovers that all the victims visited a website called Feardotcom.com, where voyeurs can watch a serial killer named the Doctor (Stephen Rea) torture and murder his victims. Rea is the "one that got away" for Dorff, a skeleton in his closet, as he puts it. They also figure out that everyone who logs onto the site dies 48 hours after they do so of what seems to be their greatest fears (drowning, car crash, etc). Dorff decides that the only way to figure everything out is to log onto the site himself. Once he does, he finds out that it is actually the ghost of Rea's first victim (German actress Gesine Cukrowski) that is punishing everyone who logs onto the site for wanting to watch the death and suffering of others. Cukrowski was a hemophiliac in life, deathly afraid of any sharp objects, and Rea dissected her alive, thus the reason she uses her victim's greatest fears as tools to kill them. 48 hours is how long she was tortured before she died. Basically what it all boils down to is that Dorff and McElhone have to have to stop Rea in order for the ghost to stop her killing spree. And how do they do that? By logging onto the site once they find him, releasing the ghost and enabling her to exact her revenge. This marriage of serial killer thriller and ghost story horror probably would have been better served had the creative team stuck with one trope or the other. As it is, it comes across as the inbred bastard child of Seven and The Ring (the original Japanese version since Gore Verbinksi's American remake wasn't released until a month and a half after Feardotcom came out). Some inventive visuals can't save this one from the abysmal script, terrible plot and crappy performances. Nigel Terry, Michael Sarrazin, and personal favorites Jeffrey Combs and Udo Kier co-star. Universally panned by critics upon release, it did win the Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film award at Fantafestival in 2003. On the other hand, it also won the Worst Film award at both the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards and the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards the same year.

Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)

Film Title: Universal Soldier: The Return
Released: August 20, 1999
Directed by: Mic Rogers

Written by: John Fasano & William Malone based on characters created by Dean Devlin, Christopher Leitch & Richard Rothstein

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Michael Jai White, Heidi Schanz & Bill Goldberg

Plot: When the UniSol program gets shut down by the government, the supercomputer that controls them goes rogue. Its up to Luc Deveraux, the original Universal Soldier but now human, to stop it.

IMDb: 4.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 5/100
My Score: 1.5/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Universal Soldier: The Return marks the return of Jean-Claude Van Damme to the franchise following his absence from the made-for-television films Brothers in Arms and Unfinished Business, the events of which are completely ignored here. Unfortunately, this movie is nearly as bad as those two. Van Damme is Luc Deveraux, the sole surviving UniSol from the first film. Not only is he human again but he also has a thirteen year old daughter (Karis Paige Bryant). How either one of these things is possible is beyond me, but I digress. He works as a technical expert for the program with scientist Xander Berkeley, creator of the Self-Evolving Thought Helix, or S.E.T.H., a self-aware supercomputer that controls the Universal Soldier units. When the government decides to stop funding the program, S.E.T.H. goes rogue, taking over the compound using the UniSols at his command, led by Bill Goldberg. S.E.T.H. then implants himself into a body enhanced with nanotechnology (Michael Jai White), effectively becoming the UniSol messiah. A fail safe built into the programming requires Van Damme to type a code into the system within eight hours or S.E.T.H.'s memory will be wiped. S.E.T.H. kidnaps Van Damme's daughter in an attempt to coerce him into giving up the code but the whole situation ends up being moot as S.E.T.H. figures it out by himself anyway. Tossed into the mix is a journalist (Heidi Schanz) who was at the facility when S.E.T.H. took over and who ends up being the gal pal and love interest for Van Damme (his wife died years previously). So if my explanation of the plot isn't enough to tell you already, this script is beyond ridiculous. The acting is sub-par by everyone and the fight scenes are pretty unexciting. There are a few good explosions and the heavy metal soundtrack is decent, featuring songs by Megadeth, Static-X, Anthrax, Fear Factory, Ministry, Gwar and Powerman 5000, but very little else of value is to be found. This was the directorial debut of stuntman Mic Rogers and stands as his only credit as a director to date. Along with Brothers in Arms and Unfinished Business, The Return is ignored by the future installments of the franchise and is not considered canon.

Supernova (2000)

Film Title: Supernova
Released: January 14, 2000
Directed by: Walter Hill (as Thomas Lee)

Written by: David C. Wilson based on a story by Daniel Chuba & William Malone

Starring: James Spader, Angela Bassett, Peter Facinelli, Robin Tunney, Lou Diamond Phillips, Wilson Cruz & Robert Forster

Plot: A deep space medical rescue ship answers a distress signal from a distant mining colony and the lone survivor they pick up brings aboard an artifact of unknown origin.

IMDb: 4.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 10/100
My Score: 1.5/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Supernova had a tumultuous production and the end result shows it. Originally pitched by William Malone in 1990, the script went through many changes before finally being produced. The movie opens introducing the crew of the Nightingale 229, a deep space medical rescue ship. They receive a distress signal from thousands of light years away from an abandoned mining colony. The ship is damaged upon arrival at the colony on a rogue ice moon orbiting a blue giant star. The mysterious survivor (Peter Facinelli) they rescue brings aboard an alien artifact discovered in the mines. It turns out to be a ninth dimensional bomb that transforms the humans who come into physical contact with it. Facinelli becomes increasingly stronger, younger and homicidal, killing nearly everyone on board in an effort to keep the artifact for himself. In the end, he gets jettisoned into space with the artifact right before it explodes, igniting the blue giant into a supernova. The two remaining crew members (James Spader and Angela Bassett) barely escape the blast and as they are leaving, the ships computer informs them that the supernova will reach Earth in fifty-one years and will either destroy all life or "enable mankind to achieve a new level of existence." The end. Seriously, that's how it ends. Spader (who looks fantastic) and Bassett try to bring some depth to the material but have a hard time because there's not much to mine. Facinelli is great as the nice guy but when he starts showing his true colors he begins to falter. The effects are decent with the exception of the ship's robot. MGM didn't want to give director Walter Hill money for an animatronic so he was left with a guy in a shiny suit that looks like, well, a guy in a shiny suit. This "robot" wouldn't be out of place in a B sci-fi movie from the 1950's but it sticks out like a sore thumb here. The other actors are adequate in their roles but there isn't enough for them to do and when they die, you don't really care. Hill and the executives at MGM butted heads over several issues, including the number of effects shots needed to be completed in post-production, leading to Hill quitting the movie. When test screenings of the film met with poor results, MGM brought in Jack Sholder for extensive, uncredited re-shoots. Sholder's cut also met with poor test scores and Francis Ford Coppola was brought aboard to re-edit the film yet again. The final result hit theaters nearly two years after it was originally planned to and was almost universally panned by critics. Hill had his name removed the movie, and the pseudonym Thomas Lee was used in place of the more traditional Alan Smithee. The trailer below is proof that the studio had no idea what to do with this mess as they tried to market it as a lighthearted sci-fi adventure film instead of the darker sci-fi thriller that it is.

House on Haunted Hill (1999)

Film Title: House on Haunted Hill

Released: October 29, 1999

Directed by: William Malone

Written by: Dick Beebe based on a story by Robb White

Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, & Bridgette Wilson

Plot: An eccentric tycoon offers $1,000,000 each to five strangers if they stay in a haunted house overnight and survive to tell the tale.

IMDb: 5.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 27/100

My Score: 2.5/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

House on Haunted Hill is an expanded remake of the 1959 William Castle classic of the same name. It was the first film from Dark Castle Entertainment, a production company started by Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis and Gilbert Adler, with the intention to remake Castle's films for a new generation. Geoffrey Rush is an amusement park tycoon who throws a birthday party for his antagonistic wife Famke Janssen in a haunted house that used to be an insane asylum. Each of the five guests attending is offered $1,000,000 each if they can stay alive until morning. Needless to say, very few actually do. While the film pales when compared to the original, it succeeds in a number of places on its own merits. For instance, the opening scene with the fake elevator crash is a nice little freak out moment. The effects are high quality, too, but one would expect nothing less from KNB. The performances throughout are decent, with Rush and Janssen in constant competition to see who can chew up more scenery, but the standout performance for me was Chris Kattan as the overly nervous owner of the house. On the downside, the photography often becomes jarring and shaky with sweeping, tilting camera moves. I understand that this is supposed to correlate with the psychological state of the actors in the horrific scenes in which it occurs but its comes off as kitschy and is distracting. The major fail for me, though, was how the film takes the supernatural route. The first film worked so well because everything that happened was staged in order to cause panic among the guests for nefarious means. This version, however, retains most of the plot elements from the original, including the adulterous wife and her secret lover scheming to kill her husband, but in the end there is a darkness, an evil that actually exists and succeeds in killing just about everyone. This one deviation takes away the main element of what made the original so good. Musician Lisa Loeb, James Marsters and one of my favorite characters actors, Jeffery Combs, co-star. Peter Graves also briefly appears as himself hosting a television series called "Terrifying But True!!" At the 2000 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Taye Diggs won for Best Supporting Actor - Horror and Janssen was nominated for Best Supporting Actress - Horror.

Movies I Want to See: W.E.I.R.D. World (1995)

There is very little information regarding W.E.I.R.D. World, a failed television pilot from 1995 directed by William Malone. With a creative team that consisted of writer/producer A.L. Katz, co-producer F.A. Miller, writer/co-producer Scott Nimerfro, writer/co-executive producer Gilbert Adler, and executive producers Richard Donner, David Giler, Walter Hill, Joel Silver, and Robert Zemeckis, it seemed like this project was destined to go places. Not sure exactly what happened but needless to say it was not picked up for a series and has pretty much disappeared entirely. You can't even find a bootleg on the internet of this thing. According to Christopher Smith (reviewer jellyneckr on IMDb, the only one to review the movie on that site), the pilot bears similarities to the live-action Tales from the Crypt series. This can't be all that surprising since everybody I named a few sentences back were all part of the creative team for that show, too. Hell, even Malone wrote and directed an episode or two. They even adapted a story from Bill Gaines, co-creator and writer of the Tales from the Crypt comic book series, and co-editor/publisher of EC Comics and Mad Magazine. It seems to me that what the team was trying to do was capture the success of the Tales from the Crypt formula using science fiction rather than horror stories. The pilot stars Dana Ashbrook (from Twin Peaks), character actor Marshall Bell (Kuato from Total Recall), Kathryn Morris (of Cold Case), Gina Ravara (of The Closer), Jim True-Frost (of The Wire), Tony Cox (Marcus from Bad Santa), and Ed O'Niell. By the way, W.E.I.R.D. stands for the Wilson Emery Institute for Research and Development. These three clips are all I can find on YouTube.

Creature (1985)

Film Title: Creature
Also known as: Titan Find (UK), Alien Creature (Norway)
Released: May 8, 1985
Directed by: William Malone
Written by: William Malone & Alan Reed
Starring: Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward & Klaus Kinski

Plot: An expedition to Saturn's giant moon Titan uncovers that we are not alone in the universe! But the life form that has been sleeping there for 2,000 centuries is now awake, hungry and angry!

IMDb: 4.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes: No score
My Score: 2/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

One of the many Alien clones in the 1980's, Creature is really nothing special. Like Malone's first film, Scared to Death, this sophomore effort suffers from a lot of the same issues. Murky photography (pretty much everything that takes place off of the spaceship sets can't be seen), a bad script (human beings can survive in the atmosphere of Titan without the aid of environment suits! Who knew?) and some bad performances (a most of the cast is shaky from scene to scene) all weigh the film down. Starring Wendy Schaal, who would voice Francine Smith on American Dad! starting twenty years later, and Klaus Kinski, who not surprisingly gives the strongest performance of the ensemble. John Stinson & Michael Griswold, who each appeared in Scared to Death, have small roles as an astronaut and control room technician, respectively. Another tie to that film is the book that Schaal's character brings along for the voyage, the one that Diane Salinger salvages from the ship and hands her at the end. The cover, only fully seen in the last few moments of the movie, is the poster for Scared to Death. According to the movie's Wikipedia page, the film has fallen into public domain since its release, leading to several low quality VHS and DVD copies of the film. It was nominated for two Saturn Awards, Best Horror Movie and Best Special Effects. Watch a trailer below or the full film here.

Scared to Death (1980)

Film Title: Scared to Death

Also Known As: The Aberdeen Experiment, Scared to Death: Syngenor
Released: November 1980 (Paris Festival of Fantastic Films)
Directed by: William Malone
Written by: William Malone & Robert Short
Starring: John Stinson

Plot: A killer is littering the streets of Los Angeles with dead bodies. An ex-cop turned novelist gets dragged into the investigation and discovers that the killer is actually the syngenor, the SYNthesized GENetic ORganism, that survives on human spinal fluid!

IMDb Score: 4.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: No score
My Score: 1/5

Scared to Death is a low budget sci-fi/horror film from the early 1980's and writer/director William Malone's debut film. With the exception of John Stinson (who's only passable as alcoholic [but only when it suits the scene] ex-cop turned hack novelist) the rest of the cast are some of the worst actors I've ever seen, most of whom did little or nothing else after this film. The worst, in my opinion, is Toni Jannotta, playing a former lab assistant for the scientist who created the creature. A weak script, terribly murky photography and horrific acting add up to...well, you guessed it, a really bad movie. And not in a good, fun way, either. According the film's Wikipedia page, musician/actor Rick Springfield was going to star as the lead but called Malone the night before shooting was to start and backed out of the project. Apparently he would miss too many acting classes if he took the role. A sequel titled Syngenor was released in 1990 and Syngenor was used as an added subtitle to the Scared to Death DVD release to make the connection between the two films. It won a Saturn Award for Best Low-Budget film and a Fantafestival Award for Best Special Effects. Watch the trailer below or the full film here.