Shadows Run Black (1986) is easily the worst thriller I have ever seen. To summarize, the villain is the "coed strangler," but strangles few of his victims, they give away the surprise ending at the 30 minute mark, the acting is uniformly bad, the story has no flow as they move from one murder to the next, characters are introduced, then just seem to vanish, there is not a single interesting camera angle in the entire film, and the 4/3 transfer on the bare bones DVD is dark, green and grainy. Someone is killing young women. The end up getting him. That is about the entire film.

The film is notable for an early appearance from Kevin Costner as a suspect. This followed his appearance in the stinker, Sizzle Beach. There is a lot of nudity.

Jacqueline Rochelle Brodley - breasts as first victim - decapitated by trunk lid.
Terrie Congie - breasts in swimming pool - strangled and head bashed on diving board.
Rhonda Selesnow - Breasts - stabbed between breasts
Ann Hull - all three Bs - strangled
Barbara Peckinpaugh - all three Bs, including outer lips - hacked to death with a cleaver

Terry Congie appeared with Costner in Sizzle Beach, her only other credit. Barbara Peckinpaugh, also known as Susanna Britton, has also appeared in adult features. IMDB readers have this at 2.7 of 10. This film is an easy F, totally incompetent in nearly every aspect.

Movies:

Ghost Ship (2002)

A bunch of people died long ago in a haunt of the very rich. That location is separated from the rest of the world, isolated, and thus the perfect setting for some unsuspecting people in the present to come into contact with the ghosts of those who died back then.

Is it Stanley Kubrick's The Shining? I wish. Instead, it is The Shining at Sea, better known as Ghost Ship. The Overlook Hotel is now a floating hotel, a luxurious Italian liner which disappeared in 1963 without a trace. We know a little bit about what happened on its last night with a living crew, because we see a particularly macabre shipboard incident in the opening scene.

In fact, that kicked the movie off pretty well, and the set-up of the film is spooky, as we follow a tiny salvage tug chugging through the Bering Sea, looking for a ship which may or may not be there. Since it is so close to the Pole, both ships are trapped in kind of a perpetual night/twilight. Throw in some stormy seas and some squeaky riggings, and you have a pretty good setting for a campfire story.

To me, Ghost Story was the biggest disappointment of last year. I like a spooky story, and I absolutely loved the first 15-20 minutes of this film, which were gruesome, grotesque, spooky, stylish, and atmospheric ...

... and then there was nothing.

As is typical with this type of film, the plot can work with three mysteries simultaneously:

(1) what will happen to the crew of the salvage ship?

(2) what really happened that night the liner disappeared?

(3) does the mysterious pilot who brought the liner to the attention of the salvage crew know more than he is telling?

That clay had potential, and the film got a really good head of steam going

Then it sort of forgot to be scary. It ended up as a Grade-B film in a Grade-A package. The crew starts chit-chatting with the ghosts, then some of the ghosts are afraid to talk to the living because they are afraid of other ghosts, and the whole thing gets to the point where it needs the "too silly" guy from Monty Python to break up the skit.

None of the characters really give us someone to latch onto and pull for, ala Ripley in Alien. The crew of the salvage boat has several throw-away members, ala the red shirt crew members on Star Trek, and they may as well have names like Ian Doomed. There wasn't that much dramatic suspense in the plot, they didn't fully exploit the potential of the three basic mystery sources listed above, and there weren't even that many fun "gotcha" moments.

And the ending was filled with loud obnoxious, strident, irritating, heavy metallic music and other discordant noises.

 ... and Julianna Margulies floating around in the Bering Sea until a liner found her ... Huh? This isn't the Caribbean. Even if we discount the improbability of someone being found while floating through the open sea, I wonder how long any human can last in the Bering Sea, even in summer, before succumbing to hypothermia.

They had quite a bit of solid raw material, and the first 15-20 minutes are absolutely excellent, but for my money they didn't develop many scares or a worthwhile mystery out of it.

Beautiful nudity, from Francesca Rettondini, an Italian singer/actress who played a character named Francesca, an Italian singer. I wonder how many other women were up for the part?

• Francesca Rettondini (1, 2, 3, 4)

The Hunger (1983)

The movie is nothing special, but the film has a long lesbian scene between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon, two of the sexiest women in the world at the time. Graphic Response made a sound clip of the scene!

• Deneuve/Sarandon

Updates:

• updated volumes: Susan George

Other crap:

• This story quoted from the NY Post's Page Six: Supermodel Naomi Campbell, "Sopranos" sexpot Drea de Matteo, "XXX" stunner Asia Argento and bombshell actress Gretchen Mol are set to play strippers in a movie by maverick "Bad Lieutenant" director Abel Ferrara. Ferrara wrote and will direct the movie, "Go-Go Tales," in which Christopher Walken is in talks to play the impresario of the celeb-studded jiggle joint. Rap mogul Damon Dash will be one of the fleshy flick's producers. Asked if one could expect to see his kittenish cast in the raw, Ferrara declared it was all a matter of money. "If we come up with enough bread, we'll get their clothes off"
• While "Details" prepares its buzzed-about piece on the most well-endowed men in Hollywood, the new issue of Spin has firsthand info from legendary groupies Donna Anderson and Cynthia Plaster Caster on the "biggest" men in rock
• Playboy picks the Top 25 Party Universities
• Butler wins again! According to ESPN, they play in the gym where Hoosiers was filmed. I don't even know where the hell Butler University is, and I don't think they made the Playboy Party list, but Indiana must be a good guess based upon the Hoosiers trivia. Keep on Hoosing, dudes. Whatever that is.
• Mickey Rourke's face now seems to be made out of rubber
• Sort of sad: Kari Wuhrer has been in more than 60 films, and she gets to watch the Oscars on TV like the rest of us (NYTimes, requires registration)
• why are the keyboard letters arranged in such an illogical way?
• Saddam Hussein living in Brooklyn
• The complete list of Oscar winners. Things that surprised me:
  • Eminem won an Oscar. The current score: Eminem one, Scorsese zero.
  • The Pianist. Polanski won for Best Director, Brody for Best Actor.
    • Brody won over a strong field, and seemed genuinely surprised. Probably any of the five could have won legitimately. Cage and Day-Lewis were superior in colorful roles, and Nicholson and Caine are screen legends. Brody did a great job, was on screen almost every minute in a three hour film that required him to lose thirty pounds which he could not spare, so congratulations to him.
    • Polanski won in one of the most screwed-up categories in years. The two best directing achievements of the year, in my opinion, were obvious, and neither were nominated: Peter Jackson for The Two Towers and Spielberg for Minority Report. By leaving the two best guys out of the race, the academy left the door open for Martin Scorsese to win his first Oscar,  but the voters saw it through a different prism, and Scorsese will have to wait a while longer. (Polanski did great, but I think I might have voted for Chicago's Marshall among the five who were nominated.)

What're the odds?

Odds to win the 2003 Davis Cup. Closing Date: Apr 01, 2003 19:00

Cheers to a very surprised Adrien Brody for flat out telling the show's director and orchestra to stuff it. It could have been a disaster, but instead became a classy move as Brody took a few minutes to very eloquently and diplomatically speak his mind about war, peace and support of the troops and civilians in the middle east.

And on the complete other end of the spectrum...Jeers to Michael Moore for turning his acceptance speech into a soapbox moment. I very much enjoy Moore's work and "Bowling for Columbine" is an important film for several reasons...

• Maria Tornberg, topless and playing a German swinger in her one and only film. Vidcaps from the silly and fun movie "Super Troopers".

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

I seem to be stuck in a rut. Today it's another Andy Sidaris film! This time we look at 1993's "Enemy Gold".

This one features former Heffer Suzi Simpson. All I can say is she has a body to die for!

• Suzi Simpson (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

The result of a boring Sunday afternoon...Images from the flick "The Corporate Ladder".

• Kathleen Kinmont looking fantastic topless and in lingerie. (1, 2)

• Meilani Paul, showing off her robo-boobs. (1, 2)

• Lisa Marie Scott, also topless.

My favorite Japanese actress in the HK movie "China Strike Force", the movie counts with the participation of Mark Dacascos and Coolio as the Bad guys, this is the closest Norika has come to nudity on film.