R. Lee Ermey

On August 7, 1939, a young woman who works in a meat-packing plant in rural Travis County, Texas, dies giving birth to a child in the back room of the building when she suddenly goes into labor. The cruel plant manager abandons the newborn in a dumpster. A local woman, named Luda Mae Hewitt, discovers the baby while searching for food. She names the infant Thomas and takes him to the Hewitt residence and raises the baby as her own son. Over the next 30 years, Thomas (Andrew Bryniarski) grows up and goes to work in the same slaughterhouse. When its horrid conditions cause the closure of his workplace, Thomas comes back and kills the slaughterhouse's owner with a sledgehammer; he also finds and takes a chainsaw. Charlie Hewitt (R. Lee Ermey), Luda Mae's (Marietta Marich) sadistic son, learns from Sheriff Winston Hoyt (Lew Temple) what Thomas has done, and accompanies the Sheriff to arrest Thomas. When they find Thomas, Charlie kills the Sheriff with a shotgun and takes his identity. Charlie and Thomas take the Sheriff's body home and butcher him for stew meat, telling the rest of the family that they will not leave their home even as the rest of the area becomes deserted. A few months later, in July 1969, two brothers, Eric (Matthew Bomer) and Dean (Taylor Handley), drive across the country with their girlfriends Chrissie (Jordana Brewster) and Bailey (Diora Baird). Eric and Dean are draft dodgers and are plotting to flee north to avoid being drafted into the U.S. Army where they will be sent to Vietnam. They stop at a local eatery where they encounter a group of bikers. As the group pulls away, a female biker, Alex (Cyia Batten), follows them. A chase ensues, ending with the group crashing into a cow and flipping their car. In the process, Chrissie gets thrown from the car and lands in the weeds, out of sight of the others. Charlie Hewitt/Sheriff Hoyt soon arrives on the scene; he immediately shoots Alex, throws her body into the trunk of his squad car, forces the rest of the group in as well, and calls for his Uncle Monty (Terrence Evans) on the car's CB radio to tow the wreckage. The tow truck comes and tows the car, in which Chrissie has hidden herself. Hoyt takes the group to the Hewitt house and calls for Thomas to butcher the dead Alex. He then takes Eric and Dean to a barn and hangs them by their arms from the rafters; he later ties Bailey to the kitchen table. From the car, Chrissie sees her friends tied up and runs back to the highway. She flags down Holden (Lee Tergesen), one of the bikers from the diner, and tells him about Alex and her friends. Holden then follows Chrissie back to the house. At the Hewitts', Hoyt tortures Eric and Dean by beating them with his nightstick and forcing them to do pushups when he figures out that they are draft dodgers. However, they manage to free themselves. When they attempt to rescue Bailey, Hoyt beats Eric, and Dean gets caught in a bear trap. Bailey escapes, taking Monty's truck, but Thomas stops her by stabbing her in the chest with a meat hook and drags her from the truck. Thomas then takes Eric to the basement and straps him to a wooden table. Holden enters the house to search for Alex, but ends up shooting Monty in one of his kneecaps, surprising Hoyt in the process. Hoyt leads him to a bedroom where Thomas kills him with his chainsaw. Chrissie finds Eric and tries to free him, but cannot release the metal straps nailed to the table. Thomas comes downstairs as Chrissie hides under the table. Thomas kills Eric and then skins his face, putting it on as a mask.... thus earning his nickname Leatherface. Thomas/Leatherface comes to the aid of his wounded uncle Monty, and seeing that the shotgun wound to his left kneecap is bad, uses his chainsaw to amputate Monty's leg off. Then, for no clear reason, Thomas chainsaws Monty's other leg off as well just above the kneecap as some twisted way of making is work perfect. Later, Chrissie finds and tries to free Bailey, whom Hoyt has tied up again on the second floor. As Chrissie attempts to untie her friend, Hoyt and Thomas catch her and bring her downstairs for "dinner". There, Dean sits unconscious as Thomas/Leatherface slits Bailey's throat with a pair of scissors, then grabs Chrissie and brings her downstairs as well. On the way to the basement, Chrissie manages to stab Thomas in the back with a screwdriver and escapes by jumping out a window, with Thomas pursuing her. Dean regains consciousness, escaping to the front of the house. There he assaults Hoyt by smashing his head repeatedly into the solid concrete porch, knocking out him out cold, as well as Hoyt's two front teeth, then heads out to find Chrissie. Meanwhile, Chrissie hides in the abandoned slaughterhouse. She slashes Thomas's face with a knife she has found, but he drags her to the floor. Dean arrives to stop him but Thomas impales and kills him with his chainsaw. Meanwhile, Chrissie makes her way to a nearby car and drives off into the night. Chrissie, desperately looking for help, sees a police deputy who has pulled someone over. As Chrissie is about to pull over, Thomas suddenly appears in the back seat and kills Chrissie by ramming his chaindaw through her seat. The car, out of control, crashes into the Deputy and citizen, killing both of them. Thomas (now called Leatherface) exits the car and slowly walks back along the dark road to the Hewitt house.

Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs), Wayne LeFessier (Steve Zahn) and J.D. McNugent (Jack Black), best friends since fifth grade and Neil Diamond fans throughout, form a Neil Diamond tribute band called "Diamonds in the Rough". Wayne was born when his mother's water broke at a Neil Diamond concert and ever since he has had a cosmic connection to Neil Diamond. JD is lactose intolerant and not very bright. Darren is a romantic but very gullible around women. Wayne became the third string Quarterback for his high school football team, and JD became the mascot, while Darren joined the cheer-leading squad. Darren develops a crush for Sandy, who was also on the cheer-leading squad. Coach Norton was their idol through High School. As grown-ups, JD works at Subway. Darren is the social director at a retirement home. Wayne started his own business for pest and rodent removal, but he ends up getting assaulted by the animals. Darren is still alone and wants to be in a relationship. The only woman he loved, Sandy, was from a family of circus performers who left town for new opportunities. Sandy didn't even know that Darren had a crush on her as he never asked her out. Darren meets a beautiful but domineering psychologist, Judith Fessbeggler (Amanda Peet), through a chance encounter in a local bar after a band gig. Judith shows signs of being emotionally abusive when she orders a drink for Darren without even asking his preference. Unfortunately, six weeks into their relationship, Judith is still making Darren watch her change clothes. Darren asks her if they could finally have sex, but Judith refuses until marriage. She suggests non-penetrative sex instead and proceeds to push Darren's head between her legs. Darren gets nothing but a sore jaw. Judith says that she cannot return the favor as she has very sensitive gums and instead gives Darren a magazine and a towel to masturbate. Darren takes Judith to meet his friends. Judith is all snobbish and calls the guys obsession with Neil Diamond as a delusion, projection fantasy. Judith tells Darren that the guys are pigs for their disgusting habits and the lack of personal hygiene. JD insists that Judith sits on his Barcalounger, but the reclining mechanism fails, throwing her right across the room. Judith loses her patience when the guys throw beer at each other after their team scores a touchdown in a game on TV. Judith isolates Darren from his friends, demands that Darren quit the band and torched his Neil Diamond albums, receive humiliating medical procedures (like implant for his butt cheeks) and attend relationship counseling under her care. JD and Wayne talk to Darren that Judith is not the right woman for him, but Darren is too far into serving Judith to be able to see the big picture. Wayne and J.D. decide to save Silverman from her by attempting to bribe her with Wayne's house, arm wrestle her, and shock her with faked photographs of Darren cheating, all to no avail (Judith knows that Darren had no tattoos and the body in the photos had a tattoo on the arm). Judith knows that she controls Darren, and he does everything she says. She refuses to let go of him. The friends, undaunted, try to reunite Darren with his "one and only", Sandy Perkus (Amanda Detmer), when she returns to Seattle to take her final vows as a nun. When Darren and Judith announce their engagement (with Darren committing to taking Judith's last name), Wayne and J.D. kidnap Judith. However, she discovers the identity of her captors, and the duo are convinced they cannot let her go. When they visit Coach Norton (R. Lee Ermey) in jail (who accidentally killed a referee with a football signal pole in a fit of rage), his advice is that they should just kill her. The pair attempt to shoot Judith but end up deciding against it. Sandy's feelings for Darren are reawakened, but the pair's attempted date is ruined by Darren's preoccupation with Judith. Sandy, disheartened, returns to the convent, but Darren snaps out of it and runs the 30 miles there to win her back. Chained to an engine block in J.D.'s basement, Judith convinces J.D. he is gay. She knocks him unconscious to steal his keys and escape, only to be tranquilized with a dart gun by Wayne. Returned to the basement, Judith seduces Wayne into releasing one of her hands, so she escapes again. Judith runs to Darren's house in time to see him kiss Sandy but shames him into confessing his engagement to Judith. Sandy, disheartened, returns to the convent again. Darren has Wayne and J.D. arrested. After escaping from jail with the help of Coach Norton, J.D. and Wayne rush to the convent on the brink of Sandy's final vows as a nun. They convince her that Darren still loves her. They then kidnap Neil Diamond to help Darren and Sandy reunite. At the wedding, Neil stalls the proceedings with song while Wayne and Judith beat each other up (as love play), Darren and Sandy reunite, and J.D. arrives holding Coach in his arms, and Coach asks him when will he get married and J.D. says he's gay and then Coach tells hims he's Gay too. On stage at the Neil Diamond concert that night, the priest weds Darren to Sandy, Wayne to Judith, and J.D. to Coach; the entire cast sings "Holly Holy".

In 1963, Greensboro, North Carolina, lives a liberal-minded Lydia (Jennifer Leigh), and her 14-year-old son Sam (Bug Hall). Lydia's father Casper Callahan (R. Lee Ermey) is running for governor of North Carolina, and he does not want Lydia and Sam in his way, so the two are banished from North Carolina. Lydia claims that she did not do anything wrong, but Sam can guess that Lydia messed up again and Casper could not risk more embarrassment to hit his campaign. Lydia knows that Casper banished them as having an illegitimate grandchild would not look good on the campaign trail. Sam started writing the day his grandfather banished him and his mother from North Carolina. Sam promises not to skip the good parts, unlike the other writers as his story is not about self-pity. Lydia drives 2000 miles with the top down. She could not read a map, so Sam navigated. Arriving in Wyoming, Lydia only wants to have a good time, and Sam is never allowed to call her "Mom" (she wants him to call her "Lydia"). Lydia decides to break away from her usual habits & start a new life in Wyoming. Lydia's liberal ways cause quite a stir in small town Gro Vant, Wyoming. Sam soon finds out that he is one of only two students in Gro Vant High School who can read. Sam is the only one who seems to ask questions during class and challenges the opinion of the teachers, while the others are simply OK to memorize whatever is taught in class. The other one is Maurey (Mischa Barton), a girl at the same age as Sam who wants to learn about sex. Maurey is Sam's neighbor. Maurey's mother Laurabel (Peggy Lipton) takes a welcome basket for Lydia, but Lydia is offended at being typecast as a housewife and shuts the door on Laurabel's face. Lydia is a scandal in a largely conservative town. All the single men lust after Lydia, who is bored with the same old, wants to try "something new". Dot (Andrea Menard) is the waitress at the local diner where Lydai and Sam have their meals. Sam is forced to join the football team as the coach cannot conduct practice till he has 22 players and he is one short. The coach is also Sam's English team and threatens him with failing the class, if he does not comply. Maurey and Sam don't get along at first but are united in their grief when President Kennedy is shot in Texas. Both are also bullied in school by the players of the school football team & which brings them even closer together. Lydia is devastated at the news of the Kennedy assassination. Sam tells Maurey that Lydia never talks about his father. Once he saw a picture of 5 guys in football uniforms in Lydia's undergarments box and figured that one of them might be his father. Lydia picks up a local native American man, Blackfeet named Hank (Michael Greyeyes), to come and live with them as she knows that her father cannot stand native Americans. Lydia starts having sex with Hank and then starts to frequent the local bars and saloons & frequently gets drunk. Maurey is frustrated that nobody would satisfy her curiosity on the subject of sex. While Lydia is too open about sex with Sam, but Maurey is told that the topic of sex cannot be spoken about openly. When Sam has a wet dream, Lydia is only too happy to sit him down and explain the process to him. Later when Sam and Maurey were in their underwear (Sam in the briefs and Maurey in the panties and bra) and the clothes were hanging around the bed, Maurey ask Sam to go first but Sam told Maurey to ask her to go as well, Eventually they both stood naked, that embarrasses Sam but Maurey said they would skip parts and they embrace. Maurey and Sam try to have sex, but just don't know what goes where. Maurey holds Sam's penis in her hands, and he ejaculates, which grosses her out. They reach out to Lydia, who tells them the anatomy of sex & gets them to try again and again till they get it right. Maurey dabbles with the hockey team jock, while Sam spends time with Bible thumping Chuckette Morris (Alison Pill). Sam and Chuckette share a few kisses, and when Sam says that he doesn't love her, she feels that she has been taken advantage of. Consequent to Maurey and Sam's mutual discoveries, Maurey becomes pregnant. Maurey decides to have an abortion in a distant hospital, and by accident, runs into her mother Laurabel (Peggy Lipton) and the baseball coach who is also there with the same intent. Hank admonishes Lydia for teaching sex games to Sam & Maurey when they were only 14. He places the blame of Maurey's pregnancy squarely on Lydia, who allowed this to happen on her watch. Maurey moves to Lydia's and Sam's house, since her father banishes her from his house. Meanwhile, Hank Elkrunner falls for the feckless Lydia, while her dictatorial dad keeps tabs on them all from afar. In the end, Maurey decides not to have an abortion and keeps the baby, a little girl named Shannon. After being threatened to be financially cut off unless she breaks up with Hank, and lets Sam go to Military School, Lydia decides to stay with Hank, and takes a job at the local diner. In addition, Hank sells his trailer and moves in with Sam and Lydia, along with Maurey and Shannon who decide to permanently move in. The film ends with Sam finishing the flashback for the story, with Shannon nearby. Throughout the movie, Sam has many dream fantasies which star Drew Barrymore as the subject of his fantasies. In one scenario Drew is a nurse, comforting Sam on his deathbed due to the exile, and Casper repenting and seeking his forgiveness. In the scenario, after his wet dream, Drew is a sexy seductress, who helps "make a man out of him" by having sex with him 5 times in a single day.

Detectives William Somerset and David Mills must solve a bizarre case of serial murders as a predator begins to execute victims by paying homage to the deadly sin they represent.

Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), who was sentenced to death for the murder of a teenage couple, has been on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary for six years. He committed his crimes with Carl Vitello (Michael Cullen), who was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. As his scheduled execution date approaches, Poncelet asks Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon), with whom he has corresponded, to help him with a final appeal. Poncelet had written several letters to Helen, and finally Helen agrees to respond to him, and they start a correspondence. Poncelet claims that Jesus visited in his cell. Sister Helen decides to visit Poncelet, who is arrogant, sexist (calls the mother of his own child a bitch) and racist (hates niggers) and does not even pretend to feel remorse. Chaplain Farlely (Scott Wilson) is the prison priest & very orthodox. He does not support Helen's visits to Poncelet as he thinks Poncelet is guilty and is only trying to take advantage of Helen. Poncelet protests his innocence and insists Vitello killed the two teenagers and that he was only doing what he was told under the influence of booze and drugs. Poncelet also shows Helen the pic of his baby girl, whom he has only met once. He says that in 6 yrs, he has learned the law and has even written his own motion of appeal, he just needs a lawyer to file it with the court. Poncelet is convicted for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of Walter Delacroix (Peter Sarsgaard) & Hope Percy (Missy Yager). Helen argues that both Vitello and Poncelet were there and yet Vitello got life, and Poncelet got death. Poncelet is scheduled for execution by the state's new lethal injection machine (1st shot paralyzes you, the 2nd shot explodes the lungs and the 3rd shot stops the heart). Convincing an experienced attorney Hilton Barber (Robert Prosky) to take on Poncelet's case pro Bono, Sister Helen tries to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Hilton coaches Poncelet for the upcoming pardon board hearing. He says if Poncelet appears to be "human", it will be difficult to kill him. He argues for Poncelet's mother Lucille & his brother Craig Poncelet (Jack Black) to be at the hearing. At the pardon hearing, Hilton argues that Poncelet didn't have money to hire a proper lawyer and was assigned one by the state. He was a tax attorney, who never tried a capital case ever. The Trial lasted 5 days, and the jury took 4 hours to decide. The lawyer raised one objection during the entire trial. The Prosecution argues that Poncelet killed 2 people and their families are suffering too. Poncelet is proven guilty in court in trial, appeals and so on. He is not a good boy. Sister Helen's application for commutation is refused. The board rules to deny clemency and execution is on for 1 week later. After many visits, she establishes a relationship with him. At the same time, she gets to know Poncelet's mother, Lucille (Roberta Maxwell), and the families of the two victims. The victims' families (Earl Delacroix (Raymond J. Barry), Clyde Percy (R. Lee Ermey), Mary Beth Percy (Celia Weston)) do not understand Sister Helen's efforts to help Poncelet and claim that she is "taking his side". They desire "absolute justice" i.e. his life for those of their children. IN course of her support, Helen attracts vilification from her own family, and the wider society, who condemn her actions. Poncelet asks Sister Helen to be his spiritual adviser through his execution, and she agrees. Helen meets Earl who tells him about his memories of his son. Mary tells Helen about how Hope was going to join the air force within a week before she was sexually assaulted and killed. She wanted to serve overseas. That day, she had a date with Walter. Hope didn't return that night and the Percy's called the Delacroixs and learn that Walter didn't return home either. They thought the kids ran away and got married. The bodies were found 6 days later. Hope was nude, and her vagina was torn up. She was stabbed 17 times with the class pin she was wearing. Clyde remembers Poncelet being snug, arrogant and unrepentant at the trial. He even mocked Clyde. Helen starts spending more time with Poncelet as his time nears. She gets him to realize that even white people can be lazy and not just niggers. Poncelet gives interviews on TV praising Hitler and his Aryan supremacy work. He also says that he would like to come back as a terrorist and bomb govt buildings. Helen is livid and tells Poncelet that he is making it very easy for people to kill him. Meanwhile she tries to get Poncelet to realize that parents of the kids who died are also hurting for their loss. Earl's wife files for divorce as she blames Earl for not doing enough. Poncelet is moved to an isolated facility in prep for the execution. Helen is now able to visit him for longer hours in a day. Poncelet is also taken away for measurement (weight, height etc), as part of the official procedures. Helen meets guards and medical staff who will be part of the execution process. Helen encourages him to read the bible as seek redemption in the truth. Poncelet offers to take a lie detector test, but the results are inconclusive as he was feeling stressed about the execution. Governor Benedict (Kevin Cooney) rejects the clemency request as Poncelet is already publicly vilified. Poncelet meets his family the day before the execution. It was a normal meeting, with family exchanging stories about what's going on. Eventually, the family is asked to leave. Helen gets to spend the whole night with Poncelet, the night before the morning of the execution. Helen tells Poncelet to stop blaming, niggers, govt, the world for what happening to him and to start taking some responsibility. Sister Helen tells Poncelet that his redemption is possible only if he takes responsibility for what he did. Just before he is taken from his cell, Poncelet tearfully admits to Sister Helen that he had killed the boy and sexually assaulted the girl, before Vitello killed her. Helen tells Poncelet that the truth has set him free. As he is prepared for execution, he appeals to the boy's father for forgiveness and tells the girl's parents that he hopes his death brings them peace. Poncelet is executed by lethal injection and given a proper burial. The murdered boy's father attends the funeral ceremony; although he is still filled with hate, he soon begins to pray with Sister Helen.

In the beautiful wilderness of Alaska, a fire is raging at an Aegis Oil Rig owned by corrupt oil baron Michael Jennings (Michael Caine) CEO of Aegis Oil Co. Foreman Hugh Palmer (Richard Hamilton) barks at his men to fight the fire. A helicopter flies up and tall, buckskin wearing legend, Forrest Taft (Steven Seagal) who puts out the fire with a set of explosions which deprive the fire of the oxygen it is using. As Jennings and Taft fly off in a company helicopter, Jennings complains about what a pain in the rear the environmentalists will be now that a fire has broken out on his oil rig, and blames Hugh for the issue. Taft reassures him that, "I kind of blew up all the evidence," to which Jennings agrees and grins. That night at a bar, Hugh Palmer comes to Taft and asks him to do him a favor in going into the company's archives to check the safety reports of the oil rig to help prove Hugh's innocence. Taft, starting to believe there is something fishy going on with Jennings' work, agrees hesitantly. He then overhears a busty jerk oil worker say racist remarks to a native American in the bar before assaulting him. Taft intercedes and a fight breaks out between him and the racist and the racist's buddies. He brutally beats them all down and then beats the racist into a bloody pulp, smashing his nose before convincing him to change his ways, essentially beating some sense into him. The next day, Jennings puts on an environmental commercial being very uncomfortable about it and barking at anyone and everyone in his way. He then discusses business with his secretary Liles (Shari Shattuck) and vicious right-hand man MacGruder (John C. McGinley). It is revealed that in 13 days, the Aegis oil company will lose their contract to the ground that Jennings desperately wants to pump oil from, "Meaning millions of dollars a week." The rights will then revert back to the Eskimos if Aegis does not reach the rights in time. At the rig, Aegis 1, Taft checks the computers and sends Hugh the information he has been asking for. MacGruder observes this and Jennings sends him to find the information Hugh has been gathering. MacGruder and a fellow man go to Hugh's home where Hugh is downloading the data sent to him of the rigs' bad conditions. When Hugh refuses to give the records and pipe tally books up, they torture him by smashing each and every one of his fingers with a whale bone before castrating him with a pipe cutter. Hugh is tortured and killed, refusing to give up his information. Taft begins to question Jennings' means and asks him "How much money is enough" bringing to his attention that he knows of the rig's bad compositions and unsafe procedures that will cause much damage to the environment while making Jennings richer. Jennings does not respond and asks Taft to do one last job before answering his question. Taft is brought to an abandoned oil refinery in Alaska where he finds the dismembered corpse of Hugh shortly before the building explodes, revealing that Jennings had set it up to kill Taft. The explosion sends Taft flying into the air where he is injured from the explosion. Later, a tribe of Eskimos find him and bring him back to their village where they nurse him back to health and call him a "Bear" that will rescue Mother Earth from the evil oil barons. He is skeptical at first and even tries to escape only to be stopped by their dogs. He is confronted by them of his actions and explains that people are coming after him and that he is putting them in danger. He becomes acquainted with the Chief Silook (Chief Irvin Brink) and his beautiful daughter Masu (Joan Chen) who bring him to a river where he undergoes a spiritual journey via dream vision. He first sees a female orgy, and then kills a bear (Bart the Bear) and then is forced to choose between a beautiful naked woman and a fully clothed old woman, for which he chooses the latter (the old one). The woman tells him of how mother Nature is being hurt by the oil rigs and shows him water that is transforming into oil. He awakens from the dream, now determined to take down Aegis. MacGruder and his force storm the tribal camp, believing Taft is there but cannot find him. In a brief scuffle, MacGruder shoots and mortally wounds Silook before fleeing. Silook dies peacefully of his wounds after telling Taft that Taft is the warrior that will save them all. His spirit then ascends into a raven. Taft and Masu leave taking a snowmobile which the tribe has. They reach Hugh's trashed house and find Hugh's information which were hiding out in the open. They are attacked by MacGruder's men which Taft swiftly dispatches. He is hunted through the forest by a team of mercenaries led by Stone (R. Lee Ermey) who they outrun. Taft and Masu reach a friend's home where Taft supplies himself with his friend's arsenal of weaponry. Masu tries to convince him not to fight back with violence but he rebuffs her (negating everything he learned in his "spiritual journey") Taft realizes that the oil rigs pump toxins back into the earth, hurting nature even more. He then concludes that they must go and blow up Aegis 1 in order to prevent another ecological disaster (Sure, it would.) That night Taft, with Masu following behind for no reasons, breaks into Aegis rig and kills many oil workers. He sets the preventers to implode to "prevent an oil spill" and sets up C-4. MacGruder attempts to escape with Liles on a helicopter but Taft stops him and disables the chopper. MacGruder tries to plea bargain but Taft flings him into the rotor headfirst, decapitating him. Liles attempts to drive off but smashes into a oil pipe and explodes. Taft blows apart Stone with a shotgun and then confronts Jennings who is trying to keep the rig running. He berates Jennings before tying him upside down over the oil tank. Jennings taunts him to shoot him but Taft instead shoots the cord binding him, dropping Jennings down into the oil, leaving him to drown. Taft and Masu escape as the rig explodes. The film ends with Taft giving a speech about how evil oil companies are and how in pain the world is by how humans prioritize money over the environment, despite having no proof to back up his claims. He is then blessed by a medicine man who says, "The earth is our grandmother." In a mid-credits scene, Taft and Masu canoe out to a middle of a lake. Masu smiles at Taft, who looks up and sees the proud spirit of Silook flying overhead in the form of a raven.

A photographer who's afraid he's slowly losing his grip on reality is seduced by a disturbed married model. She claims it's their destiny to be together. Her husband disagrees. The photographer starts having a strange feeling of deja vu.

Marti Malone (Gabrielle Anwar) is a teenager alienated from her newly remarried father, an agent from the Environmental Protection Agency (Terry Kinney) and her new stepmother (Meg Tilly), and her 10-year-old brother Andy. Marti's father has been assigned to this remote military base on an assignment to check for contaminates which may be the cause of a recent outburst of mass hysteria on the base. Before arriving, the family stops at a rural gas station where Marti encounters a wild-eyed serviceman who tells her that "they are everywhere." When Marti runs to tell her father, the serviceman is gone. Upon arrival, Marti attempts to fit in with her new enviroment, hanging around with the base commander's rebellious daughter, and by flirting with a handsome attack helicopter pilot, Tim Young (Wirth). While examining a soil specimen, Marti's father is approached by a man named Major Collins (Forrest Whitaker), who asks him about psychological effects particularly narcophobia (the fear of sleep), saying that many people on the base are now frightened of sleep and are paranoid and suspicious. Marti's father doesn't take the Major very seriously. He is forced to take it seriously, however after extremely high levels of toxicity and mutant plant life are discovered on the base. That night, Marti Malone's step-brother approaches his sleeping mother, but she crumbles to dust as her soulless and egotistical pod double exits from the closet. Donning a nightgown, the pod-woman engages in an attempt to convince her husband that the pod invasion is a good thing, claiming it will cause the death of confusion and anger. She also claims that there's no place at all to go, as the invasion is not an isolated incident. He is almost shocked and saddened into compliance, but Marti and her step-brother arrive and drag her father out the door. His pod-wife dashes to the door and emits a shrill and mechanical scream that alerts her comrades to the danger of a human being. For the rest of the movie, Marti and her father and Andy are chased across the base by the taken over soldiers and civilians on the base, where they encounter a few remaining humans who join them and are also are chased by the pods. Searchlights go on, and the pod clones swarm over the base. Hiding Marti and Andy in a warehouse filled with barrels of poisonous waste, Marti's father promises to find help. He sneaks up to the window of Major Collins' office and enters by smashing a window. Inside, he finds the hysterical Major attempting to call for help, but gets blocked on the other end of the line by the bureaucratic pod-people. At first, he suspects Marti's father of being a pod-man, but when he realizes he isn't, he explains while wolfing down sleep-prevention pills that it is too late for running; all they can do is fight. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the fearsome pod-people, led by the base commander. Marti's father hides. Instead of shooting all of the pod-people with his gun, the Major allows them to try to convince him that the individual is never important, and that only mindlessness and heartlessness can solve problems. He shoots himself rather than live in such a world. Marti's father returns to Marti and Andy, and asks them to follow him, claiming to have found a way out. They drive aimlessly through the military base, as loudspeakers shout out instructions for spreading the invasion by carrying out pods in trucks. Frightened by all this, Marti asks her father where exactly they're going. He never gives her a straight answer, instead replying. "I know what I'm doing. Don't worry...I know exactly what I'm doing." Realizing that her father was "podded" while he was away, she swerves the car to the side and tries to escape with her brother, but her father tries to keep her in the van. Adding to all this is the helicopter pilot, Tim Young, who still hasn't figured out what has been going on, stepping onto the scene, and Marti takes his gun and shoots her pod-father dead. The pilot is horrified to see him shrink into a mass of seething and bloody goo. Marti, Tim, and Andy hide out in a nearby hanger where Tim tells them that it's too dangerous to be spotted in the open, so he'll go alone. As soon as he goes in, he is approached by the Pod-people, and pretends to be a pod-man, and although the pod-people suspect strongly that he's a human, they can't find any evidence and let him go. While he's starting up the helicopter, several of the pod-people approach Marti and Andy. Tim sees this from the air and follows them to a building on the base where humans are being duplicated. Tim lands the helicopter and enters the building to look for Marti, and finds her, nearly taken over by her pod clone on the bed next to her. Tim manages to revive her before the transformation is complete. Marti and Tim leave the building, pretending to be emotionless so they can get to Tim's helicopter to escape. However, they are spotted and confronted by the commander's daughter, whom gets suspicious and tells Marti that she saw Andy somewhere, and when Marti reacts, the game is up. Marti and Tim are forced to run to the helicopter and are joined at the last minute by Andy who runs up to them. However after taking off, Any attacks Tim, and Marti is forced to throw her taken-over brother out of the helicopter to his death on the ground far below. At dawn, Marti and Tim return to the military base and attack with with rockets and bombs from the helicopter's armaments, and destroy the pod-making facility and most of the pods and their clones with it. The final scene has Marti and Tim flying away in their helicopter and landing at a military base near the city of Atlanta where the ending of the film is an ambiguous one, quoting Marti's infected stepmother earlier in the film, suggesting that the phenomenon has already spread far beyond the army base, and nowhere, or nobody, is really safe: "Where are you gonna go, where are you gonna run, where are you gonna hide? Nowhere... 'cause there's no one like you left." The End

A group of troublemaking boys decide to take a stand when terrorists seize control of their boarding school. After federal agents arrest a drug czar and put him on trial, the cartel leader's vicious son storms a prep school and takes its students hostage. They rebel against the armed intruders and try to take back their academy by any means necessary. —yusufpiskin Billy Tepper is the leader of a group of rebellious boys at The Regis School. He has already been expelled from three prominent private schools. His best friend, Joey Trotta, is the son of the Head of the New York Mafia; Billy, all their friends and many other kids at the school have equally influential and prominent, if more law-abiding, parents. When Luis Cali's father is put in jail, he heads for the Regis School to put the son of the judge in charge of the case under hostage, only to find he has been removed. However, once he realises who the parents of the rest are, he decides the entire student body of the Regis School would be an even better bargaining chip. —Liz Jordan <c9310494@alinga.newcastle.edu.au> In Colombia, terrorist Luis Cali has taken over the Palace of Justice. Luis throws a woman off a balcony to her death and dumps a judge from a helicopter in order to make his point. Luis is angry because the US government has kidnapped his drug kingpin father Enrique Cali and transported Enrique to the USA to stand trial. The Regis School, in Virginia, is a boarding school where the wealthy dump their delinquent teenagers when they've been kicked out of everywhere else. These troubled heirs are presided over by their superiors -- Dean Parker and the headmaster. Phil Donoghue, one of the students, is the son of the federal judge who is presiding over Enrique's trial. A pair of deputy United States Marshals take Phil out of the school so Phil and his family can be placed somewhere safe while judge Donoghue presides over the trial. When Luis later takes the school hostage, looking for Phil and demanding Enrique's release, problem student Billy Tepper and his friends Joey Trotta, Hank Giles, Ricardo Montoya, Jonathan "Snuffy" Bradberry, and Derek decide to fight back against Luis. Snuffy's father Steven is the chairman of the First Empire Bank of New York, and vice chairman of the republican party. Hank's father is representative Henry Giles Jr, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Joey's father is New York mob boss Albert Trotta. Ricardo's father is a senior partner at an elite law firm, and is a former president of the California Bar Association, and Billy's father is the owner of the third largest construction company in the world. Luis has had his men place explosives all over the school, and Luis has vowed that he'll blow the place up if Enrique is not released. —Todd Baldridge

Two FBI agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights activists. Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his former Sheriff partner. —Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca> After three Civil Rights workers, who were organizing a voter registry clinic, go missing in Mississippi's Jessup County, the FBI deputes Agents Rupert Anderson and Alan Ward to investigate. After the duo encounter hostility at the hands of the county police and other males, more agents are brought in. This leads to a media frenzy, with Clayton Townley proclaiming openly that this community is an Anglo-Saxon democracy, an example of successful segregation that has been able to withstand the onslaught of integration, and total non-acceptance of Jews, Papists, Turks, Mongols, Orientals, Asians, and Negros. While differences crop up between investigative tactics of the two agents, the Ku Klux Klan, aided by the police, target the fearful African-Americans, brutally torturing them and setting their houses on fire. With the entire local community - both black and white - refusing to come forward with any information - the FBI must now consider using other methods to try and find out what really happened to the three workers. —rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com) Two authority agents team up and travel to Mississippi to investigate the disappearances of multiple activists. Everything that they discover along the way will contribute and effect the history behind the beginning of a movement that will impact the world. —RECB3 In 1964, three civil rights workers from the North disappear in a small Mississippi town and the FBI are sent to investigate. Agent in charge Alan Ward does everything by the book. Agent Rupert Anderson however was a Sheriff in Mississippi before joining the FBI and understands the local culture. He's also prepared to bend the rules a bit if it will help in the investigation. They focus on the Sheriff's office and Deputy Clinton Pell in particular as they think he may be the weakest link in the conspiracy. As the investigation intensifies however, the KKK launch a series of attacks against the local African-American population. With no one on either side prepared to talk, Ward agrees to Anderson using his own unorthodox methods to learn what happened that night and who killed the three men. —garykmcd