Neil Jordan

Novelist Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) is writing "This is a diary of hate" as he starts a new book as well as the film's narration. It's 1946 when Bendrix has a chance meeting one rainy night in London with Henry Miles (Stephen Rea), husband of his former mistress Sarah (Julianne Moore). Two years before, she had abruptly ended their affair for reasons revealed later. Henry suspects Sarah is currently having an affair and is considering employing a private eye to investigate. Bendrix was jealous of Henry during his affair with Sarah and had tried to persuade her to leave him. If she has since started an affair with someone new after telling him there would never be anyone else, Bendrix wants to find out. Without telling Henry, he hires the investigator himself, at the same time as making arrangements to meet Sarah. Consistent with the tone of his diary, their meeting is cold and promises no future. Events are shown from Bendrix perspective, with contrasting flashbacks of Bendrix with Sarah as they began their affair during World War II. The present day action continues as Bendrix encounters the private investigator Parkis (Ian Hart), who uses his young son Lancelot (Sam Bould) to help him snoop. The boy has a birthmark that disfigures his face. Parkis reports that he has found who Sarah has been seeing under the pretence of attending dental appointments. Bendrix jealousy leads him to confront the man named Smythe, using Lancelot as a ploy to gain access to his home. Smythe (Jason Isaacs) is a priest who admits he knows Sarah and who Bendrix is. Smythe is affronted by the way he has approached him and tells him to leave. The climax of Act 2 is a night of passion during the war when we witness them making love amid the sound of V2 rockets falling and shaking the house. Bendrix gets out of bed to check on his landlady and is blown down the stairs by the blast from a rocket hitting the house. When he recovers consciousness, he goes back upstairs to find Sarah praying. Seeing him, she is shocked that he is alive. Bendrix detects that her attitude has changed and accuses Sarah of being disappointed that he survived. She leaves telling him "Love doesn't end, just because we don't see each other." Back to 1946 and Parkis inveigles his way into a social function at the Miles house and steals Sarah's diary which he gives to Bendrix. As he sits to read it, the film sequences of the main events in their relationship are reshown but the narrative is from Sarah's perspective. After Bendrix is hurt by the bomb, Sarah runs downstairs and finds him motionless with no pulse. Assuming him dead, she runs back upstairs and begins to pray for a miracle. Just as she makes a promise to God that she will stop seeing Bendrix if he is brought back to life, Bendrix comes into the room. Now knowing why Sarah ended the affair, Bendrix follows Sarah and begs her to reconsider. Sarah tells Bendrix that she has felt dead without him and can no longer keep her "promise" to God. They rekindle the affair. Bendrix tries to persuade Sarah to leave Henry and confesses to Henry that he hired Parkis to find out who she was seeing while making fake visits to the dentist. Henry is furious and burns the evidence Bendrix produces about Smythe. Henry also desperately asks Sarah not to leave him. Bendrix is visited one night by Henry as he and Sarah are in bed. He does not open the door. She agrees to go away with him the following morning to Brighton where Bendrix finds Parkis is following him. To increase the likelihood of divorce, Bendrix contrives to kiss Sarah in view of their hotel bedroom window where Parkis can photograph them. Bendrix believes his goal has been realised when Henry appears in Brighton. But Henry's reason is not to confront the adulterous couple. It is to tell them what he had come to Bendrix' house for the night previously, that Sarah has a terminal illness and will not survive much longer than the duration of a divorce. Bendrix stays with Henry and Sarah during her final days. Bendrix does not permit Smythe entry when he tries to visit Sarah, telling her it was just a person, and not the postman. When she dies, Smythe visits to offer spiritual support but evokes anger from Bendrix who blames God for taking her. It becomes clear the object of hate in his book is not Sarah or Henry but God. "I hated You as though You existed. Now I am tired of hating...but You're still there". At Sarah's funeral, Parkis tells Bendrix that after finding his son Lancelot asleep in a doorway while he was supposed to be recording her visits to Smythe, she had kissed his birthmarked cheek as she put him on a train home. When the birthmark disappeared, Lancelot believed she had worked a healing miracle on him. At Henry and Sarah's house, Bendrix continues to talk to God whose existence and virtue he had earlier doubted, completing his book with the lines.. "I've only one prayer left. Dear God, forget about me. Look after her and Henry".

A suburban housewife learns that she has a dreamworld connection to a serial murderer, and must stop him from killing again. The housewife Claire Cooper is married to the pilot Paul Cooper and their little daughter Rebecca is their pride and joy. When a stranger kidnaps a girl, Claire dreams about the man but Detective Jack Kay ignores her concerns. But when Rebecca disappears during a school play, Claire learns that her visions were actually premonitions and she is connected to the killer through her dreams. She has a nervous breakdown and tries to commit suicide. Her psychologist Dr. Silverman sends her to a mental institution and soon she finds that her husband will be the next victim of the serial-killer. Further, the serial-killer was interned in the same cell in the hospital where she is. Will Claire be able to save Paul? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Claire Cooper dreams strange things from time to time. One night, she dreams about a little girl being taken away by a stranger, right in her neighbourhood. When her own daughter Rebecca is kidnapped and murdered only a little later, Claire is sure about the chilling truth that her and the killer's mind are connected to each other in dreams. But nobody believes her being able to foresee the killer's next steps, as she could with her own daughter. In addition, the nervous breakdown she suffers gets her into a mental facility after a suicide attempt. And here, locked away in a padded cell, she dreams of her husband being murdered... —Julian Reischl <julianreischl@mac.com>

In 1922, Joe O'Reilly (Ian Hart) attempts to console Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts), who is mourning the death of Michael Collins. Flashback to the end of the Easter Rising in 1916, the besieged Irish republicans surrender to the British Army at the republicans' headquarters in Dublin. Collins (Liam Neeson), Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn), Eamon De Valera (Alan Rickman), and other survivors surrender to the British Army. As the Dublin Metropolitan Police's "G" Division identifies the leaders, Collins tells Boland that next time, "We won't play by their rules, Harry. We'll invent our own." Several key figures of the Rising, including Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, Tom Clarke and James Connolly, are executed by firing squad, but De Valera, an American citizen, is imprisoned in England. Collins, Boland, and the others are sent to Frongoch internment camp. After his release, Collins runs for a seat in the First Dail. The 1918 Irish general election results in the victorious Sinn Féin party unilaterally declaring Irish independence and in so doing beginning the Irish War of Independence. De Valera is elected President and Collins is appointed Director of Intelligence for the emerging IRA. While giving a speech, the rally is attacked by the Royal Irish Constabulary. Collins is severely beaten but is rescued by Boland. While recovering on a friend's farm, they meet Kitty, who begins a romance with Boland. Collins is tipped off by Detective Ned Broy (Stephen Rea) that the British plan to arrest De Valera and his Cabinet. De Valera, sensing that the arrest will spark a worldwide outcry, dissuades his cabinet from going into hiding and persuades them to allow their arrests to take place. Collins and Boland evade arrest, though there is no response to the wider action. As the last senior leader still free, Collins begins a counter-intelligence campaign with help from Broy. Numerous assassinations of agents and Irish collaborators are carried out by the IRA's Dublin Brigade. Later, Boland and Collins travel to England and break De Valera out of Lincoln prison. Angry that Collins has overshadowed him, De Valera announces that he will travel to the United States to seek recognition from Woodrow Wilson, and orders Boland to accompany him. Before they depart, Collins informs Boland that De Valera fears leaving them alone together. The war continues to intensify; the British assign SIS Officer Soames (Charles Dance) to counter the Irish Republican Army, though he and several of his agents are killed in an attack orchestrated by Collins. Left in command, Collins orders the IRA to begin raiding police barracks for weapons. He also issues a statement that all collaboration with the British will be punished by death. Collins then recruits a squad from the IRA's Dublin Brigade, which, on Bloody Sunday, assassinates fourteen members of MI5's Cairo Gang. In retaliation, the Black and Tans fire into the crowd at a Gaelic football match at Croke Park. Broy's assistance to Collins is also discovered by Soames, who subsequently has Broy tortured and killed. De Valera returns from the USA having been unable to secure President Wilson's support. After returning, De Valera decrees that the IRA must attack The Custom House. The British hint at direct communication with the Irish, though Collins' guerrilla campaign has boded poorly for Ireland's image. Collins argues that fighting conventionally will allow the British to win, but the Irish Cabinet votes to support De Valera. The attack fails catastrophically, leaving six men dead and seventy captured. In the aftermath, Collins declares that the IRA can only hold out for a month. In private, he tells Boland that the IRA will be lucky to hold out for another week. Despite the desperate situation the Irish Republican Army now finds itself in, the British unexpectedly call for a cease to the conflict. Collins is ordered to London to participate in negotiations with the British, despite objecting that he is not a diplomat. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, De Valera erupts upon learning that the terms have been published without his agreement. Though the Republic of Ireland is not immediately granted independence, the treaty enables Ireland to achieve it over time while remaining a British dominion during the interim as well as losing six of the nine Ulster counties, which will remain under British control. Collins argues that the Treaty gives them the freedom to achieve the Republic. De Valera and his supporters resign in protest after the Dail approves the Treaty by 64-57. Both Collins and De Valera try to sway the Irish people in their respective directions. Collins is attacked by an anti-Treaty Republican during a rally, but escapes. In the aftermath, he asks Kitty Kiernan to marry him, and she accepts. When the people vote to approve the Treaty, De Valera refuses to accept the results and orders the IRA to seize the Four Courts in Dublin. Ordered by the Cabinet to retake the Four Courts, Collins is appalled at having to fight former comrades. Arthur Griffith (Owen Roe), however, informs him that, if the Irish Free State Army will not deal with the IRA, the British Army will. In the subsequent Battle of Dublin, the IRA is driven from the city. Despite Collins' attempts to capture him, Boland is shot by a sentry while trying to swim the Liffey. Devastated by Boland's death, Collins travels to County Cork. He reaches out to De Valera through an intermediary, asking for a peace conference. Without De Valera's knowledge, the intermediary informs Collins that De Valera will meet him at Beal Na Blath the following day. As a convoy of Irish Army vehicles approaches, they find a cart laid across the road and IRA men open fire from a nearby hillside. A short ambush starts, and Collins is shot and killed after breaking cover from behind an armored car. Joe O'Reilly (Ian Hart) tries to revive Collins, but he dies and his attacker unknown. Kitty is informed of his death just after trying on her wedding gown. She is devastated by his death. Completing his story, O'Reilly tells Kitty that Collins would not want her to mourn as long as she has.

In modern-day San Francisco, reporter Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater) interviews Louis De Pointe Du Lac (Brad Pitt), who claims to be a vampire. Louis describes his human life as a wealthy plantation owner in 1791 Spanish Louisiana. Despondent following the death of his wife and unborn child (Louis picks random fights with everyone in the hope that someone might kill him and release him from his misery), he drunkenly wanders the waterfront of New Orleans one night and is attacked by the vampire Lestat De Lioncourt (Tom Cruise). Lestat senses Louis's dissatisfaction with life and offers to turn him into a vampire (Lestat does so by offering his own blood to Louis). Louis accepts, but quickly comes to regret it. While Lestat revels in the hunt and killing of humans, Louis resists his instinct to kill, instead drinking animal blood to sustain himself. Disgusted by Lestat's pleasure in killing, Louis comes to suffer tremendously as a vampire. Louis survives by drinking the blood of birds and rats, while Lestat hunts slaves and aristocrats. The slaves of New Orleans are fed up and attack the house of Louis and Lestat at night. Louis is disgusted with himself when he is compelled to kill his gentle house slave Yvette (Thandie Newton) and helps the slaves to burn down the house. Despite Lestat tempting Louis endlessly with human blood, Louis does not give in to temptation. Wandering the streets of New Orleans amid an outbreak of plague, Louis can resist his hunger no more and feeds on a little girl whose mother died in the plague. To entice Louis to stay with him, Lestat turns the dying girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), into a vampire. Together, they raise her as a daughter. Louis has a pure fatherly love for Claudia, while Lestat spoils and treats her more as a pupil (Claudia has a strong hunger for blood and kills everyone from her dressmaker, to her pianist, and takes advantage of her frail appearance to attract potential victims to herself), training her to become a merciless killer. Thirty years pass, and Claudia matures psychologically but remains a little girl in appearance and continues to be treated as such by Lestat. When she finally realizes that she will never grow older or become a mature woman, she is furious with Lestat and tells Louis that they should leave him. Claudia wants to know how Lestat turned her into a vampire, but he wouldn't divulge his power. She tricks Lestat into drinking the "dead blood" of twin boys whom she killed by overdose with laudanum, which weakens Lestat, and then slits his throat. Though Louis is shocked and upset by Lestat's death, he helps Claudia dump Lestat's body in an alligator swamp. They spend weeks planning a voyage to Europe to search for other vampires, but Lestat returns on the night of their departure, having survived on the blood of swamp creatures. Lestat attacks them, but Louis sets him on fire and, in the ensuing blaze (which spreads through the entire town), they are able to escape to their ship and depart. After traveling around Europe and the Mediterranean but finding no other vampires, Louis and Claudia settle harmoniously in Paris in 1870. Louis encounters vampires Santiago (Stephen Rea) and Armand (Antonio Banderas) by chance. Armand invites Louis and Claudia to his coven, the Théâtre Des Vampires, where the vampires stage theatrical horror shows for humans (where they feed on live humans on stage, but the public thinks that is part of theatre). On their way out of the theater, Santiago reads Louis's mind and suspects that Louis and Claudia murdered Lestat. Armand warns Louis to send Claudia away for her own safety, and Louis is intrigued to stay with Armand and learn about the meaning of being a vampire. Armand tells Louis that he knew Lestat and agrees that he was not good in anyway. Claudia demands that Louis turn a human woman, Madeleine (Domiziana Giordano), into a vampire to be her new protector and companion (as she says that one day Louis will go with Armand), and he reluctantly complies. Shortly thereafter, the Parisian vampires abduct the three of them and punish them for Lestat's murder, imprisoning Louis in a coffin and trapping Claudia and Madeleine in a chamber, where sunlight burns them to ash. Armand does nothing to prevent this, but the next day he frees Louis. Seeking revenge, Louis returns to the theater at dawn and sets it on fire, killing all the vampires. Armand arrives in time to help Louis escape the sunrise, and once again offers him a place by his side. Louis rejects Armand and leaves, knowing Armand had allowed Claudia's murder so that he could have Louis to himself. As decades pass, Louis never recovers from the loss of Claudia and dejectedly explores the world alone. He returns to New Orleans in 1988 and one night encounters a decayed, weakened Lestat, living as a recluse in an abandoned mansion and surviving on rat blood as Louis once had. Lestat expresses regret for having turned Claudia into a vampire and asks Louis to rejoin him, but Louis declines and leaves. Louis concludes his interview with Molloy, prompting Molloy to beseech Louis to make him his new vampire companion. Louis is outraged that Molloy has not understood the tale of suffering he has related, and attacks Molloy to scare him into abandoning the idea. Louis then vanishes, and Molloy runs to his car and takes off, while playing the cassette tapes of Louis' interview in his car. On the Golden Gate Bridge, Lestat appears and attacks Molloy, taking control of the car. Revived by Molloy's blood, Lestat offers Molloy the choice that he "never had" - whether or not to become a vampire - and, laughing, continues driving over the bridge.

Two fugitives pass themselves off as priests in the hope of evading capture and passing the police blockade at the border with Canada. A couple of escaped convicts on the run find refuge with the Church when they are mistaken for two priests. The two are keen to flee but are unable to do so without the help of Molly. —Rob Hartill Ned (Robert De Niro) and Jim (Sean Penn) are convicts who get their shot at freedom when they unexpectedly escape from prison along with a killer. The two fugitives head north towards the Canadian border, but before they can cross over, they get mistaken for priests and decide to go along with the ruse. Taking up residency at the area monastery, the two men awkwardly try not to blow their cover, even as Ned falls for a beautiful local girl, Molly (Demi Moore). —from track.tv (Canon y mus)

When a hotelier attempts to fill the chronic vacancies at his castle by launching an advertising campaign that falsely portrays the property as haunted, two actual ghosts show up and end up falling for two guests. When Peter Plunkett's Irish castle turned hotel is about to be repossesed, he decides to spice up the attraction a bit for the 'Yanks' by having his staff pretend to haunt the castle. The trouble begins when a busload of American tourists arrive - along with some real ghosts. Among the tourists are married couple Jack and Sharon. Sharon's father holds the mortgage on Castle Plunkett, so she's hoping to debunk the ghosts. Jack, on the other hand, after meeting pretty ghost Mary, is very eager to believe. Can there be love between a human and ghost? Jack and Mary are going to try and find out. —April M. Cheek <Aravis2713@aol.com> An Irish Castle, the main source of revenue and employment for the region, is about to be repossessed. The villagers and the owner attempt to turn it into a tourist hotel destination for foreign visitors by pretending it is haunted. Their early attempts are comedic failures. The American tourists turn out largely to have ulterior motives, one related to the creditor about to repossess and another a researcher attempting to expose the haunting as a fraud. The owner's mum, who disapproves, soon summons the real ghosts of the castle to take revenge on the Americans. All Hallow's eve turns into a real horror movie but with a twist that both the ghosts and the tourists experience personal catharses which improve their individual situations. Everyone ends up better off by all Saints Day with two new couples even, one consisting of a 200-year-old ghost and an American tourist. —Dunham16 Peter Plunkett's Irish castle, turned hotel is about to be repossessed, he decides ghosts would attract more Tourists. The trouble begins when a bus load of American tourists arrive. Among them, the daughter of the man who holds the mortgage and a paranormal psychologist and his family. When the real ghosts of castle get angry and decide to take a hand in things will they all survive Halloween? —S. Robertson