David Rasche

Showcases Hammer Films through the eyes of its actors, filmmakers and fans, tracing the history of the production house.

Hunter, a young woman from a lower-working-class family, has recently married Richie, a man from a wealthy family who is set to take over as CEO of his father's Manhattan corporation. This affords Hunter the ability to stay at home in the couple's lavish upstate New York home. Despite this, Hunter finds herself emotionally stifled and isolated in both her marriage and domestic life, while Richie is distant and inconsiderate toward her. For example, at a dinner with Richie's parents to congratulate the young couple on their pregnancy, Hunter is enticed to tell a story, only to be interrupted by her father-in-law zoning out and asking Richie about business. One day while home alone, Hunter develops the impulse to eat a marble. She finds it exhilarating and begins to consume other inedible objects around the house, including thumbtacks, metal figurines, and batteries. Hunter becomes pregnant and the sonogram technician notices an anomaly in her abdomen during the routine ultrasound. She is rushed in for emergency surgery to remove a variety of objects trapped in her intestine. Hunter is diagnosed with pica, a psychological disorder that compels individuals to eat inedible objects. Richie's parents, Katherine and Michael, arrange for her to see a psychiatrist in the city. During her therapy sessions, Hunter says she swallows the objects because she likes the feel of their textures in her mouth. Richie hires Luay, a family friend and immigrant from Syria, to monitor Hunter while he is at work. Hunter, feeling smothered, is initially hostile toward Luay, who dismisses her mental illness as resulting from her privileged life. In therapy, she eventually reveals she was not raised by her biological father and has never met him, though she knows his name and keeps a picture of him. She was conceived as a result of her mother's rape at the hands of a strange man she had met in a bar. The rapist served time in prison for the crime. One afternoon, Hunter overhears Richie speaking with her psychiatrist on the phone, and realizes Richie has bribed the doctor to tell him what was discussed in Hunter's therapy sessions. This sends Hunter into a panic, and she swallows a miniature screwdriver. Luay finds her choking violently, and calls 9-1-1. After undergoing surgery to remove the screwdriver, Michael and Katherine arrange to have Hunter committed to a psychiatric hospital for the next seven months until she delivers the baby, threatening that Richie will divorce her. Luay, who has warmed to Hunter, allows her to flee into the woods, and stages it to appear as though she had escaped. Hunter hitchhikes to a motel and calls Richie, who begs her to return. She explains she had rushed into their marriage and pregnancy to make him happy. When she refuses to come back, he chastises and insults her. Hunter smashes her cell phone and spends the rest of the night watching television and eating soil from outside. The next day, she hitchhikes to the home of her biological father, William Erwin. William and his wife Lucy are having a birthday party for their daughter. They assume Hunter is the parent of one of their daughter's friends, but she privately reveals her true identity to William. During an emotional conversation, William professes his shame for the rape of Hunter's mother. Hunter asks him if he is ashamed of her and whether she is like him, which he denies. Having obtained closure, Hunter visits a clinic and is prescribed medication to induce an abortion. She takes the pills while eating lunch in a food court and experiences the abortion in a public restroom. (copied from Wikipedia)

To the amusement of their adult children and friends, long divorced couple Don and Ellie Griffin (De Niro and Keaton) are forced to play the happy couple for the sake of their adopted son`s wedding after his ultra conservative biological mother unexpectedly decides to fly halfway across the world to attend. With all of the wedding guests looking on, the Griffins are hilariously forced to confront their past, present and future - and hopefully avoid killing each other in the process.

Katie (Swinton) copies her soon-to-be-ex-husband`s CIA files onto a disc and misplaces it in a gym. When found, gym employees (Brad Pitt & Frances McDormand) try blackmailto make fast cash. But the plan is foiled accidently, leading to chaos, confusion, and ultimately redemption.

Sometimes you find out that the love you left is the only one you really want -- no matter what.

A story about the life of a twenty dollar bill as it weaves in and out of the various lives of several people. The film follows a $20 bill from its ATM birth to its eventual demise. Along the way, the note weaves in and out of the lives of a street person, an aspiring writer, a stripper, two thieves, and many others in surprising and inventive ways. —Don Porter <dgp@ee.wustl.edu>

A soap opera writer gets hit on the head and wakes up as a character in his own show. Jack is the head writer for a successful soap opera, and he's sweet on the show's star, lovely Laura. It's easy for everyone but Jack to see that she's playing him for a sap. But a conk on the head brings Jack some new insights - and some new powers. He finds himself in Ashford Falls, site of his fictional soap opera -- and everything he writes comes true! It's a fantastic opportunity to get Rachel, Laura's character, to fall in love with him. But life isn't easy even in the fictional world, and even when you're the author! —Rick Munoz <rick.munoz@his.com>

After being dumped by his girlfriend, a boy runs away to California. But he ends up in heaven because he dies after trying to help a family from drowning in a river. In heaven he'll meet a beautiful girl, who has never reincarnated before. In 1952 while driving to California to start his life anew, twenty-something Mike Shea accidentally dies while doing a heroic act. Despite floundering in his life - he was having troubles holding a steady job and his supposed girlfriend was about to marry someone else - he was not ready to leave the living. In heaven, he learns that despite it being a fantastical other world existence, he still has human emotions, such as romantic love, which he feels for a "new" soul he meets named Annie Packert (i.e. she has never been among the living on Earth), who in turn loves him. He also learns that one's next life is somewhat predetermined by their stay in heaven. So when Annie is sent to Earth for her first go around as a human, Mike pleads with the man in charge at heaven, Emmett Humbird, to locate him in his next human life at least in the same country so that he can find Annie. Emmett reluctantly agrees, but only gives Mike thirty years in his next life to find her. Those next lives of Annie and Mike are as Allison Chandler and Elmo Barnett respectively. Each carries a bit of their experience with each other in heaven to their new subconscious human being, Ally's manifesting itself in an imaginary childhood friend named Mike, whereas Elmo grows up to be a drifter but one not sure for what he is looking. With Elmo receiving a little help from both Emmett and some people from his past life, will the match made in heaven find its way to Earth before the thirty year deadline? —Huggo A romantic, occasionally funny, drama about two souls who consummate their marriage literally in "Heaven". Mike Shea, in his first life dies as a young man performing a heroic rescue. Shortly after arriving in "Heaven" he meets a new soul, Annie Packert, who has never lived on Earth before. The drama centers around their separation soon after being wedded and the burning question is whether they will reunite on Earth before time runs out or whether they are fated to eternal soul-searching. —Anonymous During the 1950s, Mike Shea lives with his parents and has a normal relationship with his girlfriend. But one day, she tells him that some other man has proposed her matrimony and the worst: she has said yes. So, Mike runs away from his little town to California, with his dog. The trip is going fine, until a car accident crosses in his way. An entire family has fallen to a river and they're trapped inside their car. In an heroic gesture, Mike dives in the river and he rescues all the family members, but unfortunately he dies drowned. He goes to heaven and he meets with his aunt, who is now a talented painter. After find some known people from his life in Earth, Mike meets with a beautiful woman, Annie, a new soul which has never reincarnated before. Mike learns that he can reincarnate and return to Earth. But before that, he and Annie fall in love and get married. The problem is that Annie is very curious about Earth and some time later, she tells Mike that she wants to reincarnate in a baby. Mike's now very sad missing Annie and he wants to return to Earth and find her. He will make a deal with Emmett, a kind of angel, in which Mike will have 30 years to find Annie, otherwise each one will have an unhappy life with other people. Annie in the 1960s has become a toy designer, named Ally, married with a filmmaker. Meanwhile, Mike is a quite disorientated kid, which tries everything, like being a painter, then a soldier, just to become later a musician. Many years pass, but it seems that Mike and Annie are having some difficulties to meet each other again. —Alejandro Frias

A military weapons engineer struggles to do his job responsibly, while a hapless tank commander has to live with the consequences in combat years later. Wylie is a lazy engineer. Landry is a Sergeant specialising in Armour. They have never met but their lives become entangled when Landry must take the tank Wylie designed into combat. Wylie is waiting for his employer to go out of business when he meets another engineer who gives him a disk with the plans for a system that will save his employer. The other engineer is dead moments later leaving Wylie with the disk and credit for the design. Suddenly Wylie is no longer a hack, but the saviour of his company and finds his life is no longer the same. —John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net> In 1982 Wylie is working for a company located in a former bowling alley which is about to go under. In 1984 Lt. Landry is demonstrating a tank in Kuwait that causes chaos. This is confusing, but the events are related. Wiley meets a man in a bar who is designing technology for a tank and is about to meet with KGB spy Jeff. Fearing what may happen (and he is right), he sneaks his design into Wylie's briefcase. Wylie finds the technology, and given that he will save his company by doing so, he reluctantly goes along with a co-worker's scheme to pass the work off as his own. The technology doesn't work perfectly but it can be improved. Wylie secretly asks a co-worker to investigate the plan further and discovers even worse problems. During all this Wylie also cheats on his wife with boss Clair and runs for his life from Jeff and other goons. Landry has troubles of his own. With plenty of silliness from the natives. In the end, one has to wonder if Wylie can fix the problems before Landry gets blown up by a tank that has already performed poorly. —This is essentially the plot summary from my user review.