Dick Miller

The film takes place about 8 years after the events of "Space Jam". when the Warner Brothers Inc. Studio Company in Hollywood, Los Angeles announces a Bugs Bunny Movie, Bugs Bunny Esq. gets a starring role in the new movie, but his jealous frienemy Daffy Horacio Tiberius Armando Sheldon Duck wants to be in it too, fed up with villainous roles and overshadowing. However, studio executive Katelyn "Kate" Houghton looks at the numbers, and sees that nobody wants Daffy. She fires Daffy and orders him off the Warner Bros lot. a security guard named Damien "DJ" Drake Jr. must escort Daffy off the lot. Daffy does not leave easily and DJ must chase Daffy all around the Hollywood street causing tremendous damage to the studio and accidentally causes the Warner Bros' Water-Tower to fall down and cause a giant flood. DJ is also fired and kicked off the lot. He goes home, not knowing that Daffy is hiding in his backpack. At home, DJ gets a message from his famous movie-superstar father, Damien Drake, is actually a secret spy agent in real life. and that Doctor Luther J. Chairman, the dark evil president, now-owner (after the original founder Marvin Acme was murdered) and chairman of the evil Acme Corporation (likely located in Fairfield City, New Jersey) is holding him prisoner and wants an ancient mysterious magical legendary mythical blue monkey-shaped gem called: "The Blue Monkey Diamond" which has the supernatural powers to transform humans into monkeys so that Mr Chairman can shift all mankind into monkeys to use as slaves. Damien tells him in the message to go to Dusty Tails at Las Vegas, DJ must first find the Blue Monkey Diamond before the Acme Corporation does to save the world. DJ and Daffy join forces to find the Blue Monkey Diamond and then save his father and go in his old yellow pizza gremlin car. back at Warner Bros, they try to film the movie without Daffy, but fail. Mr Warner, the boss and owner of Warner Bros wants him back and sends Kate to get him back. Kate and Bugs arrive at DJ's house and realise that DJ went to Las Vegas with Daffy. they find Damien's secret spy car and use it to track the others to Las Vegas. Daffy and DJ arrive at the city of Las Vegas, Nevada and find Dusty Tails at Yosemite Sam's Western casino hotel restaurant, she gives them a "queen of diamonds" playing card and tells them about the Blue Monkey. Yosemite Sam and his other cowboys reveal that they are secretly evil agents for Acme and chase Daffy and DJ through the saloon trying to take the card, but Daffy and DJ escape and bump into Kate and Daffy and they all have a big city car chase across Las Vegas. they eventually all escape by putting the spy car in flying car mode and fly it out of Las Vegas, Sam has a car crash into a giant pile of explosives, resulting in a giant explosion. they crash into the desert and get marooned, until they find a Walmart store nearby and buy food and water supplies to survive. then they find Area#52 and a woman that works there named Mother shows them a video about the Blue Monkey and its supernatural magical powers to shift humans into monkeys. soon, one of the aliens there named Marvin The Martian receives a message from Mr Chairman of the Acme Corporation and Marvin escapes and breaks all the alien monsters out and attack Bugs, Daffy, DJ and Kate. they luckily manage to get out just in time. DJ looks closely at the card and notices it has the Mona Lisa's face on it, so they all go to the Museum of Paris, France and look closely at the Mona Lisa. DJ dissects the card in half and realises that half of it is an X-Ray, they X-Ray the Mona Lisa and take a photo of the X-Ray, which reveals that it has the map of the African jungle to the location of the Blue Monkey. Elmer J. Fudd jumps out and reveals that he was secretly a dark evil Acme Agent all along. he tries to steal the card and they have a big chase through the paintings of the Art Gallery 'til Elmer turns into tiny art pigments after chasing them through a pigment-made painting and forgets to change back to his normal form when he comes out, leaving Bugs just enough time to completely disintegrate him to smithereens using a wind fan before he can change back. meanwhile, Kate gets kidnapped by Mr Smith, Mr Chairman's assistant and sidekick. Mr Smith takes Kate up the Eiffel Tower and steals the camera with the X-Ray photo and tries to escape in a helicopter with the help of Beaky Buzzard The Vulture, Kate and DJ try to stop him but Kate has a giant fall from the tower. but DJ luckily catches her and saves her with a grappling hook. DJ, Bugs, Kate and Daffy travel to the jungles of Africa to find the Blue Monkey. they find DJ's neighbours, Grandmother Emily "Granny" Webster, an old woman with several pets: Sylvester James Pussycat and Tweetybird The Canary riding on an elephant through the jungle for a holiday. they all go together and find the Blue Monkey, though Granny and her pets soon take off disguises and reveal that they were actually Mr Chairman and his Acme Agents. they're teleported to The Acme Corporation building and they steal the Blue Monkey and take DJ and Kate as prisoner with Damien. they give the Blue Monkey to Marvin who takes it up into space to an Acme-owned Martian satellite near Planet Mars, Bugs and Daffy secretly follow him into space in a spare Acme escape vessel spaceship that they steal from Marvin. DJ and Kate manage to undo to ropes tied around them, only to be confronted by a giant evil Acme robot cyber-dog. Kate and DJ get into a fight with the dog while Damien is chained to a railway trap with TNT crates. DJ jumps to the railway trap just in time as the train (which is being driven by Wile Ethelbert Coyote, a hungry and super-genius coyote who works for Acme) goes by and he saves Damien. the TNT, however, is pushed underneath the train and explodes after it goes past. meanwhile in space, Marvin puts the Blue Monkey into the giant laser beam-satellite and attempts to zap the universe to transform all mankind into monkeys. Bugs comes with a carrot-light-saber and Daffy comes dressed as Duck Dodgers, they have a big epic space battle with Marvin and manage to blow up the satellite and foil Marvin and Acme's plan before it can zap the world and only one small bit of energy from the diamond makes it to Earth but only zaps Mr Chairman who turns into a monkey. Marvin tries to stop Bugs and Daffy with his Bubble-Gun, but it explodes as well and traps Marvin in a giant bubble and flies off into outer space. Bugs and Daffy return to the Acme tower and have saved the universe, only to walk out of a fake film-set back at Warner Bros and realise that none of it really happened and was just a movie being filmed that whole time. Daffy and Bugs decide that both of them are just as good and Daffy would never have any more "second-banana" again. Daffy thinks forward to his future career, knowing that this is just the beginning, only to be squashed by the Looney Toons' logo and the film ends.

The film begins with GloboTech Industries acquiring the Heartland toy company, CEO Gil Mars tells remaining toy designers Larry Benson and Irwin Wayfair to develop actual live-action toys capable of "playing back". Mars selects the action figures the Commando Elite for the project and educational toys the Gorgonites for their enemies. After Mars forgoes any safety testing and sets a short production time, Benson uses Irwin's password and chooses GloboTech's overly powerful, X1000 intelligent AI munitions microprocessor integrated circuit to control the toys. Teenager Alan Abernathy signs off for a shipment of the toys at his family's toy store without his father's consent. He and a delivery truck driver named Joe investigate the toys introducing the Gorgonites' leader Archer and the Commando Elite's leader Chip Hazard. The daughter of Alan's next-door neighbor and love interest, Christy Fimple, buys Chip as a birthday present for her brother Timmy. After Archer sneaks to Alan's home in Alan's backpack, Alan realizes that he is a sentient being, but in the meantime, the Commando Elite awaken and apparently destroy the Gorgonites in the toy store. Alan calls the company and fills in a complaint. Later when Larry and Irwin listen to Alan's voice mail, they wonder how Alan got the toys since they were only supposed to be released at a later date, causing Larry to conclude that they are dealing with industrial espionage. Larry tries to ignore the problem until he admits he ordered the AI chips, and he used Irwin's password to get the AI chips. Irwin is terrified to discover that the X1000 were originally designed for military purposes. Larry and Irwin head to the facility that made the munitions chips and learn that the X1000 chips can learn and grow based on their programming and they can also overcome their programming. However, they cannot stand an EMP since the shielding required to protect the chips was not cost effective, which caused the government to shut down the project. Meanwhile, Chip and his squad pursue Alan to his home and attempt to kill him and Archer. Alan is attacked by Nick Nitro, whom he mortally wounds. The next day, Alan and Archer find the rest of the Gorgonites in a dumpster. At home, Alan learns that the primary goal of the Gorgonites is to seek their homeland Gorgon which they mistakenly believe to be Yosemite National Park. The Commando Elite aware of Alan's interest in Christy upon intercepting a phone call occurring between them, invade the Fimples' house, drug Christy's parents with sleeping pills, tie up and gag Timmy and place him in a closet, turn Christy's collection of Gwendy dolls into auxiliaries and wait for Christy. She comes back from a date and is finally captured herself with the dolls, who declare that "it's their turn to play with her." After hearing her scream, her boyfriend runs up to see her being held down by the dolls, tied with ropes, and gagged. Before he can do anything, the Commandos attack him, causing him to run out of the room. Chip asks Christy if she is scared; he states "you'd have to be crazy not to be scared" causing her to look up in dread. They send a video message to Alan, telling him to surrender the Gorgonites or Christy will die. Alan and Archer distract the Commandos and sneak into the Fimple house to save Christy, who warms to Alan for his courage. She is tied to a chair and gagged with duct tape, but Archer frees her. They are then pursued down the street by the Commando Elite in heavily armed kit-bash vehicles, but they are all destroyed during the chase - except Chip who locates Joe's truck full of recalled Commandos. At Alan's house, Irwin and Larry seek out Alan after monitoring his phone call about the dangerous nature of the toys. Stuart punches Larry for the Commando Elite almost killing Alan. Chip attacks the house with more Commandos equipped with large numbers of improvised vehicles and weapons, and a battle breaks out between the Commando Elite and the humans inside. During the battle, the humans learn they can fry the toys' chips with an EMP blast. Alan heads out to destroy a nearby power-line to overload it and create such a pulse; Christy, Irwin and Larry head to the Fimples' house to turn on all of the electronic items inside and wedge the power transformers open to reinforce the pulse. The normally peaceful Gorgonites exit the house and fight back against the Commando Elite. Chip flies to the top of the power-line pole to stop Alan, where he briefly battles and defeats Archer. But just as Chip claims victory, Alan seizes Chip and jams him into the power-line, triggering an EMP blast which kills Chip along with all of the remaining Commando Elite. The next day, while the police and firefighters are cleaning up, Gil arrives in his helicopter. He bribes Joe, the Fimples, and the Abernathys into silence and orders Larry and Irwin to prepare the Commando Elite for military missions in South America. Gil is disappointed that the toys will never be a big hit in the toy stores. Amongst the craziness of the aftermath, Alan and Christy part on highly amicable terms, and Alan later discovers that the Gorgonites have screened themselves from the EMP blast by hiding underneath the Fimples' large satellite dish. The Gorgonites are surprised that they finally won the war against the Commando Elite. The film ends with him accompanying them into Yosemite National Park where he sends them out in a large toy boat from his father's store to find their island home of Gorgon.

On a desert road in New Mexico, a powerful demon in human form, The Collector, pursues drifter Frank Brayker. The vehicles crash and Brayker flees. Local drunk Uncle Willy takes him to a decommissioned church converted into a boarding house, where he rents a room and observes the residents: owner Irene, prostitute Cordelia, postal clerk Wally, and a convict on work release named Jeryline. A misogynistic cook named Roach arrives and informs the group about a theft attempt on his employer's car, unaware it was Brayker, and a suspicious Irene calls the sheriff. Sheriff Tupper and his deputy Bob encounter The Collector at the crash site, who convinces them that Brayker is a dangerous thief. At the boarding house, Tupper and Bob learn that Brayker is in possession of an important artifact and that he is carrying false ID. Tupper also gets word from his base that both cars were stolen and he arrests Brayker as well as The Collector. The Collector kills Tupper by punching through his skull. Driven outside by the key-like artifact Brayker possesses, The Collector draws his own blood on the sand and produces a team of demonic creatures. Brayker uses blood from the artifact to protect the building and tells the group they must wait out the night. Unable to get in, The Collector uses psychic powers to seduce and possess Cordelia. Cordelia kills Wally and cripples Irene before Brayker kills her. The group attempts to escape through old mine tunnels under the building, where Jeryline finds a boy named Danny hiding. The other townsfolk, under demonic possession, drive them back into the church. The residents demand an explanation, and Brayker reluctantly tells them the history of the key artifact. Following the creation of Earth by God, demons used seven keys to focus the power of the cosmos into their hands. When discovered, God created light, which scattered the demons and the keys across the universe. The artifact that Brayker holds is the last key needed to reclaim power; and to protect it, God had a thief named Sirach fill it with the blood of Jesus Christ. The guardians of the key, immortal while holding it, have since passed it on, refilling it with their own blood when they die. Brayker received the key from his commanding officer during World War I. Danny disappears and Jeryline rallies everyone to look for him, during which Roach sneaks the key out of Brayker's satchel. In the church attic, Irene and Bob discover that Wally was planning to attack the post office with a trunk full of weapons. The Collector soon possesses Uncle Willy, who attacks the others. While battling Willy, Roach makes a deal with The Collector to trade his life for the key, but The Collector betrays and kills him soon after Roach walks away. Brayker retrieves the key in the battle and Irene and Bob sacrifice themselves to stop the remaining minions. In the attic, The Collector brainwashes Danny, who mortally wounds Brayker before Jeryline kills him. As he dies, Brayker initiates Jeryline as a guardian of the key, deactivating all blood seals. The Collector overpowers Jeryline, taking the key from her. When he offers her a place at his side and prepares to take her heart as a trophy when she silently refuses, Jeryline confronts The Collector and spits blood from the key in his face, causing him to revert to his actual demon form before being destroyed. At dawn, Jeryline refills the key with Brayker's blood and boards a bus with her cat, sealing the door behind them. Down the road, the bus stops to pick up a stranger (Mark David Kennerly), who declines to get on stating that he'll catch the next one. Dressed identically to his predecessor and carrying the same suitcase, Jeryline realizes that he is the next Collector. After exchanging a glance in passing, the new Collector begins following on foot, whistling the theme song to the Tales from the Crypt television series.

During a conference of crime bosses held in a Gotham City skyscraper, Batman interrupts mobster Chuckie Sol (Dick Miller) attempting to distribute counterfeit money in Gotham. Sol was instructing his men about the procedure for laundering some new counterfeit bills through their casino. Batman takes out Sol's' cronies but Chuckie manages to get to the parking garage. Sol tries to escape in his car but is attacked by the Phantasm, a masked vigilante resembling the Grim Reaper, who causes him to die in a crash. Witnesses see Batman at the scene and believe him to have been responsible. Batman (Kevin Conroy) is blamed for Sol's death. Councilman Arthur Reeves (Hart Bochner) tells the media that Batman is a public menace. Commissioner James Gordon (Bob Hastings) is against it, since he doesn't believe Batman would commit first-degree murder. Detective Harvey Bullock (Robert Costanzo), on the other hand, is in favor of stopping Batman. Alfred (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) and Bruce (Kevin Conroy) are watching the presentation in the Batcave. Alfred dismisses Reeves' claims. That evening Reeves attends a party at the mansion of billionaire Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter ego. Reeves taunts Bruce for his bad luck with women and for having allowed an old girlfriend, Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany), to get away. Batman confronts Andrea, who soon deduces his secret identity. In a flashback to ten years ago during Bruce's college days, Bruce meets Andrea in a cemetery while visiting his parents' grave. That night, he dons a ski-mask and black leather jacket, and ninja styled outfit then foils a warehouse heist but is discouraged that the criminals did not fear him. This was the very first time he went crime fighting and he seeks a more frightening image. Bruce thinks that he failed to keep control of the situation because the criminals weren't afraid of him. Around the same time, he begins a romance with Andrea. Andrea invites Bruce to come and meet her father, and he agrees. They attend the Gotham World's Fair, where a particular car grabs Bruce's attention. Later that day, Bruce & Andrea greet Carl Beaumont, who is just finishing business with Arthur Reeves (Reeves works for Beaumont's legal department at this time). The meeting is interrupted by Valestra, who wants to speak with Carl. Both Bruce & Andrea are suspicious of Valestra. Afterwards, Bruce and Andrea witness a street merchant being mugged by a biker gang. Bruce attempts to stop the gang, but his concern for Andrea allows them to get away. Though conflicted about whether to honor his promise to his parents or settle down to a happy life with Andrea, Bruce eventually proposes to her. Eventually, Bruce decides to abandon his plan on becoming a crime-fighter and proposes marriage to Andrea. However, Andrea mysteriously leaves Gotham with her father, Carl Beaumont (Stacy Keach), ending her engagement to Bruce in a Dear John letter. Heartbroken, Bruce commits to a new life as a vigilante crime fighter, converting a cavern under Wayne Manor into a base and assuming the mantle of Batman. In the present, the Phantasm vigilante finds and kills another gangster, Buzz Bronski (John P. Ryan), when he visits Sol's grave at the Gotham Cemetery. Bronski's bodyguards mistake the fleeing Phantasm for Batman. Arthur is now more fanatical than ever in his crusade against Batman. Commissioner Gordon vehemently refuses to participate, so Bullock eagerly steps up. Later that night, Reeves and Bullock turn on the Bat-Signal as a trap to arrest Batman, but the latter, however, does not show up, having listened to Reeves and Gordon's argument. This further convinces Reeves that Batman is guilty of the mobster killings. While investigating the scene of Bronski's death, Batman lingers at his parents' grave but leaves after an accidental encounter with Andrea, who deduces his identity. Using the Bat-Computer, Batman confirms that the two dead men- Sol & Bronski- were partners in phony dummy corporations set up at least 10 years ago. There was a third man involved- Sal Valestra. As Batman drives off in the Batmobile, Alfred asks him if he will be seeing Andrea when he returns. Batman tells Alfred that he knows less about him than he thinks. In Valestra's office, Batman finds a photo of Carl Beaumont with Valestra and the two dead men. After spying on her and Arthur at dinner, Batman interrogates Andrea about her father's dealings with the mob, but she denies any knowledge of such dealings and her father's whereabouts. She replies to Batman that he's only one still attached to his parents. Salvatore Velestra learns of their murders in the news and fears that Batman will come for him next, resulting in a panic attack. Later that day, Valestra is rebuffed by his former ally, Reeves, when he asks for help. Desperate, Valestra turns to the Joker for help. Valestra goes to the now abandoned World's Fair, which is a hideout for the Joker (Mark Hamill), who greets him like an old friend. Valestra tells him that he thinks Batman is killing off members of "the old gang." Joker notes that this is uncharacteristic behavior for Batman, and insists he is not a hired gun for the mob. Valestra reminds him that if the vigilante is specifically targeting his old associates, then it's only a matter of time before they go after the Joker. Valestra also reminds Joker that he is even more guilty than Valestra himself is. The Joker then assures Sal that he will not be harmed. That night, the Phantasm arrives at Valestra's penthouse but finds that he has already been killed by the Joker, who also rigged the place with a surveillance camera and explosives to apprehend and eliminate the mobsters' killer. Phantasm escapes the explosion and eludes a pursuing Batman. Batman is chased by the police but escapes with the aid of Andrea, although he loses his cowl and cape during the chase, as he had used them for a decoy that the police ended up shooting. Andrea rescues Batman/Bruce in her car, and they spend the night together at Wayne Manor. The next morning, Andrea admits that she left Gotham to go into hiding with her father in Europe because he could not repay Valestra money that he had embezzled from him. Carl eventually accumulated enough money for repayment, but Valestra and the mob were not satisfied. Andrea says that she has returned to Gotham to stop her father from murdering his former partners. Bruce and Andrea tentatively resume their relationship. Bruce later examines a photograph of the mobsters and realizes that Valestra's enforcer was the man who later became the Joker. The Joker confronts Reeves in his office, accusing him of orchestrating the murders to conceal his mob connections, which Reeves denies. Andrea then calls Reeves, which confirms Joker's suspicions. Then, Reeves is exposed to Joker's toxin and taken to the hospital, where he is interrogated by Batman and confesses that he previously worked as the Beaumonts' lawyer and helped them hide from the mob. Arthur kept in touch with Carl while he was abroad, helping to set up funds. When Carl refused to bankroll Reeves's first struggling election campaign, Reeves revealed Carl's location to Valestra in exchange for the mob's support. Batman leaves the hospital in disgust. Batman deduces that the mobsters had Beaumont killed and that the Phantasm is Andrea, whose final target is her father's murderer: the Joker. Phantasm tracks the Joker to his hideout, a miniaturized replica of Gotham City in an abandoned amusement park and removes the ominous costume after Joker also deduces the identity of the Phantasm: The killer is Andrea, intent on avenging her father's death. The Joker is also revealed to be the last surviving member of the Valestra mob. Before his fateful first encounter with Batman, he was an unnamed hit-man who personally murdered Beaumont on Valestra's orders. Batman arrives and saves Andrea from the Joker and begs Andrea to give up her quest for revenge. She refuses, stating that the mob ruined any chance she had at happiness. She then tells Batman that he himself is driven by revenge. Andrea vanishes and Batman battles with the Joker, a struggle that ends in stalemate. Moments later, Andrea reappears and seizes the Joker, bidding Batman goodbye before vanishing with the super-villain in a cloud of smoke. The model city (and the entire amusement park) then erupts in a series of rigged explosions, which Batman barely escapes by falling into a waterway and being swept away to safety by the current. Back in the Batcave, a heartbroken Bruce receives consolation from Alfred, who tells him that no one could have helped Andrea. Bruce finds a locket containing a picture of himself and Andrea in the cave. Meanwhile, Andrea stands on the deck of an ocean liner, truly alone. The final scene shows Batman standing on top of a building; when the Bat-Signal emerges in the distance, he swings off into the night to continue his war on crime.

The Gremlins are back, and this time, they've taken control of a New York City media mogul's high-tech skyscraper. Having survived the destructive Kingston Falls Incident in Gremlins (1984), Billy and Kate move to New York City, eager to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. Instead, orphaned Mogwai Gizmo catches the eye of evil scientist Doctor Catheter in money-grubbing tech mogul Daniel Clamp's colossal high-rise. And once more, a splash of water spawns hordes of mischievous Gremlins. As a result, the pesky little creatures start doing what they do best: wreaking havoc. But the rules were simple. Now the city is about to taste a hearty slice of pure pandemonium. Do they have what it takes to escape the nightmare of the new batch? —Nick Riganas Billy and Kate have moved to New York City where they work for media mogul Daniel Clamp. Meanwhile, Gizmo's former owner has just died and he's been captured for the genetics part of the Clamp building. A little while later, a certain someone gets wet, creates a new Gremlin species, and learns to finally fight back after years of abuse, and while Gizmo and the surviving humans fight back, the Gremlins and their evil leader, the Brain Gremlin, are planning to escape when it gets dark, and if they do, New York City will experience a new Hell. —Will

A teenage girl and her father driving cross-country become stranded when their car runs out of gas in a remote Nevada desert town and they're forced to stay in a dilapidated trailer park where a serial killer lurks. Charlie Cox is a divorced writer who lives in Los Angeles. Charlie and his daughter Joleen are on their way home from a cross country vacation when they run out of gas in Banco, Nevada; a tiny town located in a remote part of the desert. It's one day before Jolene's 14th birthday. Charlie and Joleen go to Banco's only gas station, which is owned by a friendly Vietnam War veteran named Duckett, but Duckett tells them that he's not expecting to have any gas delivered to the station for at least another day, so they head to the local supermarket to find a phone. Sheriff Bill Childers is in the store, and he advises them to go to the nearby Palomino Guest Ranch and Trailer Park to ask for gas. When Joleen looks behind the counter, she sees the body of the store's owner, Farrell Hovis, who was shot in the head. Sheriff Childers states that the murderer is most likely a drifter. Charlie and Joleen check into the Palomino Guest Ranch and Trailer Park, which is owned by a hostile woman named Agnes Reed. Whilst her father uses the phone, Joleen speaks to Agnes's rebellious teenage son, Jimmy Reed, who she briefly came into contact with earlier at the gas station. A chemistry between the two teenagers is implied. Joleen later meets a sandy-haired boy named Pinky Sears, who is sent away by an angry Jimmy. That night, while Agnes is taking a bath after an argument with Jimmy, she is killed when a hand reaches in through her bathroom window and pushes a small fan into the bathtub water, electrocuting her. Charlie and Joleen meet their neighbors, fellow travelers Louise and Amy, who are also stranded in Banco. By now, it is obvious that a killer is terrorizing Banco. the next day, when Jimmy tries to rape Joleen, she is rescued by Pinky, who Jimmy attempts to drown before Joleen pushes him away and runs off with Pinky. Joleen's diary is later stolen by the killer. Soon after this, Joleen and Charlie agree to car pool with Louise and Amy to leave the ranch, but the murderer, having become obsessed with Joleen, blows up the car, with Amy in it, to prevent them from leaving. When Jimmy tries to rob Duckett's gas station, he is arrested and accused of being the serial killer, but the killer turns out to be one of the people that Joleen least expected. —Todd Baldridge A 14-year-old girl on a cross-country vacation with her journalist father run out of gas in a small Nevada town and must stay in a run-down trailer park, where she attracts the attention of two local adolescent teenage boys, one of whom is a killer lurking among the trailer park residents. —<pataygs@voicenet.com>

After a long and boring day at work, Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne), a computer word processor, meets Marcy Franklin (Rosanna Arquette) in a local cafe in New York City. Paul wants more in his life than just going to work and going home every boring day of his life. Paul is a well-dressed man in a suit and a tie. Paul leaves the office building when it closes at the end of the day and goes to his Upper East Side apartment on East 91st Street where he wastes the evening away watching TV and reading Arthur Miller books. Paul went to the coffee shop as he had nothing else to do at his apartment. Marcy was having her own dinner across the table from Paul. Paul and Marcy discuss their common interest in Henry Miller. Gradually, Marcy comes over to Paul's table as they strike a conversation. Marcy leaves Paul her number and informs him that she lives in SoHo with a sculptor named Kiki Bridges (Linda Fiorentino), who makes and sells plaster of Paris paperweights resembling cream cheese bagels. Later in the night, Paul calls the number from his apartment under the pretense of buying a paperweight. She invites him to come down to SoHo where she is staying with Kiki. The time is 11:32 p.m. Paul visits Marcy, taking a cab to her apartment. On his way to visit Marcy, Paul keeps a $20 bill into the payment slot of the cab. But the driver was driving very fast and recklessly and the $20 bill is blown out the window of the cab, leaving Paul with only some spare pocket change. The cab driver is furious that he cannot pay. This is the first in a long series of misadventures for Paul that turn hostile through no fault of his own. At the apartment Paul meets the sculptor Kiki, who's wearing nothing but a black bra and leather miniskirt. He comes across a collection of photographs and medications which imply that Marcy is severely disfigured from burns on her legs and torso. Kiki is working on a sculpture of a screaming man which he compares to Edvard Munch's The Scream. Marcy had gone to the drug store. Kiki invites Paul to work on her sculpture and he spills plaster of Paris on his shirt. Kiki takes the shirt away for laundry and asks Paul to give her a shoulder massage. Kiki falls asleep just as Marcy returns from the drug store. They go out to a nearby diner where they talk about their favorite movie, which is The Wizard of Oz, among other things. When offered to pay the bill, the strange diner waiter (Dick Miller) tells Paul that it's on the house. At 1:40 a.m., Marcy and Paul return to the loft, where she ushers Paul to her bedroom. In conversation Marcy reveals that she was sexually assaulted by her boyfriend. And that she is married to a guy named Franklin, who owns the place where she lives, but Franklin doesn't stay there anymore. Franklin was obsessed with the movie "the Wizard of Oz" and would scream "Dorothy", after he came during sex. After smoking a joint of Marcy's which she claims it's from Columbia, Paul, for some reason, begins acting like a jerk and leaves. Paul then attempts to go home by subway, but the fare has increased at the stroke of midnight, and he finds that his pocket change is no longer sufficient to purchase a token. Paul had 97 cents in his pocket. The attendant tells Paul that the subway fare for a token has just gone up to $1.50 that very midnight, and the time is now 2:15 am. He goes to a bar where Julie (Teri Garr), a waitress, becomes enamored with him. After Paul uses the men's room, he returns to his table and finds a note slipped by the waitress in which she asks for Paul's help as she hates her job. At the bar, Paul learns that there has been a string of burglaries in the neighborhood. The bar's owner, Tom Schorr (John Heard), offers to give Paul money to cover the subway fare, but cannot open the cash register. As a sign of trust, Paul leaves his apartment keys with Tom and rushes off with Tom's apartment keys to earn his $1.50. Paul lets himself into Tom's apartment, checks the alarm which is on (Tom had asked Paul to check the alarm due to robberies in the neighborhood). On the way back from Tom's apartment, Paul is questioned by suspicious neighbors. Afterwards, Paul spots two actual burglars, Neil (Cheech Marin) and Pepe (Tommy Chong), with one of Kiki's sculptures. After he attempts to confront them, they flee, dropping the sculpture in the process. Paul brings the statue back to Kiki's loft nearby and finds her gagged and tied to a pillar. He unties Kiki thinking that they robbed her, but she tells them that the men are Pepe and Neil, friends of hers who just bought the stature and that she's tied up because she and her boyfriend Horst (Will Patton) are playing a sex game. Kiki and Horst tell Paul that he should apologize to Marcy who has been in her bedroom crying since Paul left. Paul finds Marcy has committed suicide by overdosing on Seconal. Paul reports Marcy's death before noticing a roving neighborhood watch on the street below. On the way out, he grabs a note from Kiki inviting him and Marcy to Club Berlin. Kiki and a stout man named Horst had already left to go to Club Berlin, a nightclub. Paul looks and finds no burn marks on Marcy. Paul sees a $20 bill left behind by them and instinctively takes it. Paul calls the police to report the body. Paul attempts to return to Tom's bar, but it is locked up, with a sign indicating that Tom will be back in half an hour. Paul meets Julie, the waitress, in the street, who invites him up to her apartment to wait for Tom to reopen the bar. Julie's apartment looks like a shrine to the mid-1960s replete with the music of the Monkees playing in the background. Julie asks Paul to let her draw a picture of him which he agrees. Julie is enamored with Paul, but Paul goes back to Tom's bar. Tom tells Paul that he just left to check his apartment because it took so long for Paul to come back. Paul apologizes and gives Tom back his apartment keys. Just as Tom is about to hand over the $1.50, the phone rings and someone on the other line informs Tom that his girlfriend has just committed suicide. To his horror, Paul immediately learns that Marcy was Tom's girlfriend. Paul returns to Julie's apartment where she begins to sketch his portrait while they talk. Ultimately, Paul rejects Julie's advances and leaves. But when Paul returns to the bar to get his apartment keys back from Tom, he finds the place closed again. Paul goes over to Tom's apartment, but he is not there either. Then the gay couple and another of Tom's neighbors see him and chase him away again. By this time, however, Tom's neighbors have become convinced that Paul is responsible for the rash of burglaries in SoHo and form together a vigilante group to hunt him down. Paul goes to find Kiki and inform her of Marcy's suicide. The bouncer at Club Berlin refuses him entry because his hairstyle does not fit the Mohawk dress code, and Paul narrowly escapes several punks who attempt to forcibly give him a haircut. Paul sees Kiki and Horst at a table and calls out to them, but they don't see or hear him through the loud music and crowd. Paul runs out of the club barely able to compose himself with only a line or two of his hair shaved off. On the street, Paul is mistaken for a burglar and is relentlessly pursued by a mob of local residents. Back on the street, Paul suddenly meets the same cab driver whom he was forced to stiff earlier for the ride. Paul gives the driver the $20 bill he took from Kiki's loft, but the driver just grabs the bill and drives off as payback for stiffing him. Paul by then has just run into another strange woman, coming out of the cab, named Gail (Catherine O'Hara) a Mister Softee ice cream truck driver, whom she feels sorry for and takes him back to her apartment. Gail then blurts out that she drives a Mister Softee ice-cream truck nearby and will be glad to give him a ride home. But when they arrive at the truck parked in an alley, Gail spots a wanted poster of Paul. Gail mistakes him for the burglar based on Julie's posters. Back on the street, Paul runs into a shy homosexual man, named Alex, (Robert Plunket) and allows himself to be "picked-up" to let himself into the man's apartment. Paul asks to use Alex's phone to call the police and then tries to tell the desk sergeant about wanting to report the vigilante mob that's been endangering his life. Unbelievably, the police officer on the other end of the line thinks that it's a prank call and hangs up on him. Then Paul sees Julie on the street putting up wanted posters of him on a lamp post. Paul runs back out onto the street and calls out to her, but she just scornfully glances at him and rides off on a bicycle. At 4:10 a.m., Paul goes back to the diner where he sees Tom sitting at a table. Tom tells Paul that he just got back from the local morgue where he was forced to identify Marcy's body. Paul demands that Tom give him back his apartment keys, but Tom says that he left them back at the bar. Frantic, Paul asks Tom to hide him for there is a vigilante mob looking for him. Tom goes outside to check if the coast is clear, but Paul sees Tom running right to up Gail and the vigilante mob passing by and he tells them where Paul is. Angered at Tom's betrayal, Paul runs out of the diner just in time. As a last resort, Paul dashes back to Club Berlin hoping to find Kiki and Horst there to ask them for help, but now finds the place deserted for it is closing since the time now is almost 5 a.m. Sleep-deprived, bedraggled, and ranting, Paul uses his last quarter to play "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee on the club's jukebox and asks an older woman named June (Verna Bloom) to dance. After he explains his situation, June offers to hide him in her apartment underneath the club, where she uses Papier-Mache to disguise him as a sculpture while the mob raids the club. After the mob leaves, June is worried they will come back, and doesn't take off the plaster, which hardens, trapping Paul in a position that resembles Kiki's sculpture. Neil and Pepe break into June apartment and steal Paul, thinking him to be the sculpture they had dropped in the street earlier. They load Paul in the back of their van now spilling over with dozens of stolen appliances from the SoHo apartments including June's. The van speeds uptown and takes a sharp turn which swings open the van's back door. Paul falls to the pavement, with the force of the impact breaking the plaster open, directly outside the front gate of his office building. With no way to go home, he simply brushes himself off and goes to his desk. Paul goes to the floor where he works, sits at his desk, and goes to work at his computer while the rest of the office workers arrive. It's the beginning of just another boring weekday for him.

The Terminator is a story about a human-looking robot who is sent from the future to murder a waitress, whose unborn son would, in the future, lead humanity in a war against the machines. Another robot is sent there to protect the waitress and save humanity.

At a robot factory, two employees, Charlie (Randy Quaid) and Max (Kenneth McMillan), deliver ValCom 17485 (Andy Kaufman), a Companion Series robot suffering from a second level appendix laceration, to the factory warehouse C-Section. While in storage, Val is spoken to by AquaCom 89045 (Bernadette Peters) , a female Companion Series robot scheduled to be reconditioned and become a charming Companion Hostess for poolside parties and other social functions. Val responds that he was intended to be a companion and valet with no social charms. Despite their differently programmed personalities, Val and Aqua become close, and decide they are "mechanically compatible for many similar functions." On the factory floor, a Crimebuster Deluxe robot is being programmed, but when it shoots flames at a cardboard cutout of a nanny with a baby in a stroller on the shooting range, the programmers observe that the machine is still overreacting. A comedian-robot, Catskill 55602, is also delivered to C-Section. Catskill can only tell stupid one-liners, and needs a complete circuit rewashing. At night, Val decides he needs to take a field trip to study distant trees, and invites Aqua to come along as a highly intelligent companion who can help him collect, store and interpret data. Before they set off on their journey, they ask Catskill 55602 to join them. They appropriate one of the factory's trucks, and although he has never driven before, Val takes the wheel, zig-zagging along the road and crashing into road barriers as they travel. On his nightly rounds, the security guard notices the three missing robots in C-Section, and asks Charlie and Max where they were moved. When he learns of the missing robots, the factory boss (Richard B. Shull) berates Max and Charlie for keeping an eye on their charges, and gives them until tomorrow at 12 noon to retrieve them. The humans are unaware that the Crimebuster Deluxe has also overheard the boss's order, and the mis-programmed machine sets out to capture the fugitive robots. Val smashes the truck into a tree, and the next morning he and Aqua build a small robot, which they name Philco, to carry some of the supplies stored in the vehicle as they continue their journey on foot. Trailing the missing robots, Charlie and Max find the abandoned truck. Charlie notices the truck's dashboard is missing, and wonder if the robots might have stolen the truck and partially dismantled it on their own? Unable to find the robots, Max and Charlie are ready to return to the factory, but their boss sends out a helicopter to aid in the search. As they walk through the woods, Val and Aqua notice that Philco is missing. They locate him using Val's bow tie direction finder. Because searching for Philco is an energy drain, Val gives the direction finder to the small robot. Up in the air, Max again wants to turn back, until the helicopter pilot informs him that he and Charlie will be responsible for the replacement costs if they do not return with the missing robots. With night coming on, the robots seek shelter in a cave, but when Val scouts the location, he is tossed out by a bear, which he mistakenly believes to be a camel. Philco takes on the bear and scares the animal away. From the helicopter, Charlie spots movement on the ground-but he only sees the bear running away, as the robots have taken refuge in the cave. Realizing that Philco has no capacity for self-protection, Aqua asks Val to transfer her unit safety monitor to the small robot, relying on Val to protect her. Then, as Val and Aqua seek to repair their seemingly malfunctioning pleasure centers, they are interrupted by Philco and Catskill 55602. With the Crimebuster Deluxe also on their trail, the robots sneak into a small town at night, hiding behind small trees they have dug up. Back at the cave, the Crimebuster Deluxe picks up the fugitives' scent, and quickens its pace. In town, the robots raid a hardware store robot supply display for spare parts. They find a new bow tie direction finder for Val, but the store is out of energy packs. Philco pitches a fit when Val will not allow him to have a traffic control helmet, but before they leave the hardware store, Catskill 55602 takes the disputed helmet with him. Back on the street hiding behind their trees, the red light on Philco's traffic helmet gives them away to the Crimebuster Deluxe, which detains them for questioning. The Crimebuster Deluxe tells them he has informed the police and the fugitives will be picked up at 4:00 AM. It tells them not to move in the interim. However, the Crimebuster Deluxe becomes confused over whether the robots can be criminals if they are robots or robots if they are criminals? The law enforcement robot goes berserk, and hightails it out of town. The escapees come upon a party, and hide in plain sight by becoming servers. Again, however, the Crimebuster Deluxe is on the prowl. Discovering their discarded tree disguises outside of where the party is taking place, Crimebuster Deluxe literally crashes the party and destroys the building. Back in the woods, Val and Aqua have stopped communicating, but come to realize they need maximum input for efficiency. In the meantime, singing "America The Beautiful," Crimebuster Deluxe barrels through the woods, scaring the wildlife and randomly shooting at the fleeing animals. The runaway robots come upon a junkyard, promising unlimited replacement parts. However, their energy packs are running down. As the robots search the facility, they are observed by Calvin and Susan (Christopher Guest and Melanie Mayron), owners of the junkyard. Calvin welcomes the "customers" he believes will bring needed cash flow to the business, but Susan reminds him that the robot models do not come with a wallet option. Exploring the junkyard, Philco comes upon a dead robot, and attempts to warn Val and Aqua. However, Crimebuster Deluxe finds them and begins shooting bullets and flames. Susan and Calvin jump the Crimebuster and disable it. After its misguided behavior throughout their adventure, all agree that Philco is in need of a specialized purpose. Unfortunately, Susan informs Aqua and Val the only place where such enhancements can be made is back at the factory. On their way back, Aqua is again concerned about their energy packs. Val tells her that he has 34% power remaining, when in fact he only has .009%. Aqua also lies, telling Val that she has 33% instead of the .008% registering on her power meter. The four robots are spotted on the trail by Max and Charlie. Max wants to grab only the three missing robots so as not to mess up the factory inventory. As they slowly proceed, Val has a heart-to-heart talk with Philco, the first robot he ever built and programmed, wishing his "offspring" a bright future, even as he realizes their power packs will soon be drained. As his power ebbs, Val tells Aqua that he hopes the last thing erased in his circuit wash is his memory of her. In a selfless act, Catskill 55602 switches power packs with Philco. He still has 42% of his energy left because he has been telling low power jokes on their journey. As Val, Aqua and Philco resume their journey, Max and Charlie come upon the powerless carcass of Catskill 55602. "One down, two to go," says Max, but Charlie is annoyed that after chasing the robots all over hell's half acre they find this one close to the factory. Nearing the factory, Val and Aqua are pleased that they have been able to make their way back, and pleased that Philco will now have a bright future. Val wants to discuss one last human emotional phenomenon with Aqua, but their power runs out before he can raise the subject. A sad Philco continues on his journey alone, while Max and Charlie pick up the powerless remains of Val and Aqua. From the nearby woods, Philco sees his makers hauled away. Sometime later, Westland (Kathleen Freeman), the helicopter pilot, finds Max and Charlie now demoted to the motor pool at the factory working over the Crimebuster Deluxe. She asks what happened to the robots, and is told that they were circuit washed three times and sent out to new owners, but they returned each time and finally junked. Back at the junkyard, Calvin and Susan have refurbished the former fugitive robots, and given them updated wardrobes. Also, Val and Aqua have created another new, female sister robot to Philco. Back at the factory, the Crimebuster Deluxe is back on the prowl. He too, has had his circuits washed, but he has fooled Max and Charlie, and again heads out to fight crime in his old mis-programmed manner.

David (Roger Richman) and Barbara (Janie Squire) are two young backpackers who happen upon a military post that seems to be abandoned. They discover a large man-made reservoir and decide to go skinny dipping. Within minutes they are attacked and consumed by some underwater presence, their death screams attracting the attention of somebody still inside the military facility. Maggie (Heather Menzies-Urich as Heather Menzies) is an investigator hired by Barbara's parents to find their daughter and her companion. With financing from her employer Earl (Richard Deacon), Maggie travels to the mountainous area where the two were last seen, and she seeks out the cabin of Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman). Paul is a backwoods type who lives in a log cabin with his young daughter, who is away at summer camp. Maggie convinces him to take her to the military facility, and they discover the pond. Paul notices that the water is salty. Exploring the buildings of the complex, they find a laboratory with numerous strange animals, including a bizarre, lizard-like creation. Maggie decides that it's possible that David and Barbara drowned in the pond, and she takes the initiative to drain the pond to find out. She flips the switch, and suddenly they are confronted by a white-haired man (Kevin McCarthy) who lurches at them in a panic, trying to shut off the drain switch. In the melee, he is knocked unconscious. Paul and Maggie go outside to the empty pond and find the bones of David and Barbara caught in the drain. When the mysterious man attempts to steal Maggie's jeep, he crashes it and injures himself even more. Taking him down to Paul's cabin for the night, the man rambles on about 'razorteeth' and that they are all in danger. The next morning, Paul and Maggie load the man onto Paul's homemade log raft and they set out downstream to take him to town. When he awakens, he reveals that he is Dr. Hoak, and he explains that Paul and Maggie have done something terrible. The pond contained a breed of mutant piranha, which Hoak had been developing for use in the Vietnam War. After the war, the military pulled the plug on the operation, but Hoak remained and continued experimenting with the piranha at the facility after it was closed down. The piranha begin to claim victims immediately. Paul's friend, Jack (Keenan Wynn), dies when the piranha chew off his feet while he sits on the edge of a dock; he crawls away and bleeds to death. Downstream, a father and son are out fishing on the river; the father is killed while trying to fix the outboard engine from under the boat when he is pulled under the water and eaten alive. The boy clings to the capsized boat, but it is gradually sinking into the water. Paul, Maggie, and Hoak come upon the scene and the doctor leaps into the water to save the boy. He manages to lift the child onto the raft, but the piranha attack him. Paul and Maggie pull him out of the water, but his wounds are too severe and he dies before he can offer them any advice about how to stop the killer fish. Paul is especially concerned about reaching the summer camp where his daughter, Suzie (Shannon Collins), is located. The camp is downriver from the piranha, and it is only a matter of time before the fish reach it. There is also a new resort further down the river that is about to open for business. Grogan and Maggie make frantic phone calls to both places, but their warnings are dismissed as fiction. Eventually, the military gets wind of the piranha and they send Dr. Mengers (Barbara Steele) with a group of soldiers to investigate. At first, Mengers denies the piranha exist, but Maggie soon realizes that Mengers and Dr. Hoak were once lovers, and Mengers represents the military's desire to cover up the incident. The soldiers confine Maggie and Paul to their camp, imprisoning them and refusing to let Paul contact his daughter. Maggie and Paul escape the camp, but they are detained by the local police before they can get anybody to listen to them. Paul manages to contact the head counselor at the camp, Mr. Dumont (Paul Bartel), but he dismisses Paul's message due to his reputation of being an alcoholic. Maggie and Paul manage to break out of jail by subduing the officer who is left to watch them and escape in his squad car. The next day, the piranha attack the summer camp. Suzie, who is afraid of the water, is hiding on the shore when the other kids and counselors begin to panic in the water. Suzie bravely tries to rescue her two friends, counselors Betsy (Belinda Balaski) and Laura (Melody Thomas Scott (as Melody Thomas)) by rowing out onto the lake in a rubber raft. She collects Laura, but Betsy falls into the water and is consumed by the piranha. Paul and Maggie arrive at the camp too late, but after ensuring that Suzie is alright, they race off to the resort. The owner Buck Gardner (Dick Miller) refuses to answer their phone calls (under the advice of Dr. Mengers and her commanding officer who is there), but eventually the piranha attack and mass casualties result as dozens of people are wounded or eaten alive by the vicious fish. Mengers' superior is one of the casualties when he falls in the water as people cling onto a ferry boat and he is eaten alive along with several others. During the drive in the stolen police car, Paul remembers that the water in the test pond was salty, but the water in the rivers is fresh water. They conclude that Hoak had bred the piranha to survive in either salt or freshwater, hence if the piranha reach the ocean, they will contaminate the world's waterways, and probably the oceans as well. Paul and Maggie arrive at the resort and commandeer a speedboat to take them down the lake. Paul plans to poison the fish with pollution from a nearby sewage plant, but when they reach the plant by boat, it is now underwater, having been flooded. Paul intends to swim for it, tying a rope around his waist and instructing Maggie to take off if he has not surfaced within two minutes. He swims down to the plant and manages to get inside, opening up the tanks containing the raw sewage, but the piranha approach and attack him. Maggie finishes her countdown and takes off, pulling Paul to safety. Paul is wounded and in shock, but alive. He is tended to by Maggie and Suzy at the resort as the military and other medics tend to dozens of dead and wounded people. As the film closes, Dr. Mengers speaks to the media, assuring everyone that there is nothing left to fear of the piranha who have been killed by the sewage waste at the edge of the lake. But, the open-ended question leaves the end up in the air: have the piranha really reached the ocean as was once feared?

A U.S. marshal sets out to bring in a Mexican bandit accused of killing his girlfriend's father, but it turns out that there's more to the story than there first appears to be.

Confederate POWs escape a Union camp and make for the Mexico border chased by Union troops with both parties oblivious to the fact that peace was declared. During the Civil War Confederate soldiers escape from a Union prison and head for the Mexican border. Along the way they kill a Union courier who has a message that the war is over. Keeping the message a secret, the Captain has his men go on and they soon find themselves in a battle with the Union search party who also is unaware of the war's end. —Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>

Based on Edgar Allan Poe's story about a cataleptic Englishman obsessed with the fear of being buried alive. Emily Gault arrives at the Carrell mansion determined to rekindle an old relationship with Guy Carrell, despite the disapproval of his sister, Kate. Guy overcomes his all-consuming fear of being buried alive long enough to marry Emily but soon becomes obsessed again, building a crypt designed to guarantee that he will not fall prey to his most dreaded nightmare. Trying to prove that he has been cured of his phobia, he opens his father's tomb and is shocked into a catatonic state. His worst fears are realized as he is lowered into a grave and covered over, apparently never to learn that the treachery of someone very dear to him was directly responsible for his predicament. —Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net> The wealthy cataleptic painter Guy Carrell believes that he overheard his father, who also had catalepsy, crying in the crypt of his family when he was a kid and is obsessed by the fear of being buried alive. He leaves his fiancée Emily Gault and lives alone with his sister Kate Carrell in the family manor. However Emily seeks him out and convinces Guy to marry her, despite the disapproval of Kate, promising that she would never bury him without the certainty of his death by her friend, Dr. Miles Archer, and her father Dr. Gideon Gault. After the wedding, Guy does not travel in honeymoon to Venice, as he had promised to Emily, and builds a crypt with safety devices to avoid that he is trapped alive inside. However Emily and Miles convince him to demolish the building. Guy has nightmares and visions with the gravediggers and weird events happen in the mansion. He decides to prove that is cured of his fear and opens his father grave, but someone has moved his skeleton and Guy is diagnosed of heart attack. However he is catatonic indeed and is buried alive as he has always feared. Will be the end of Guy? Who might have caused the shock on Guy? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil