The Haunting is a film with about as much confusion around it’s name as you can get. It’s a film adaption for a book called The Haunting of Hill House, but it’s not to be confused with the film House on Haunted Hill which released in the same year, 1999. Go figure.
The Haunting follows Eleanor “Nell” Vance (Lili Taylor), an insomniac who has cared for Mother for over 10 years. When her Mother dies, her sister Jane (Mrs Madsen) and her husband Lou (Tom Irwin) inherit the house Nell has shared with her Mother all this time, they make short work of evicting Nell so they can sell it as soon as possible. Nice…
Nell receives an invitation from Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson), a sleep disorder specialist, to participate in a study at Hill House, a notoriously haunted mansion. Intrigued, Nell agrees to join, along with two other participants, Theo (Catheine Zeta Jones) and Luke (Owen Wilson).
As the study begins, eerie events unfold, revealing Hill House’s sinister history. Nell, Theo, and Luke experience terrifying encounters with supernatural forces, and Dr. Marrow’s true intentions become clear: he orchestrated the study to observe their fear responses.
All very, haunting in a house that happens to be on a hill then! Very much a supporting role for Virginia Madsen in this one, she plays Jane, the evil sister who kicks out Nell when she least needs it. Seriously, in and out, wham bam, thank you Virginia. Quite possibly the first time I’ve ever been disappointed renting a film with Virginia in it, back in the day.
Can’t really comment much on her in this one, she just does her thing. Points her finger, acts all evil like and leaves. Good though, to be fair.
Availability:
No problem tracking this one down on DVD, or in bargain bins where I’ve seen it a lot.
Trailer:
Anthology series The Hitchhiker would see Virginia Madsen take a role in the fourth Seasons first episode, “Perfect Order” which originally aired on February 17th, 1987.
Or, if you’re in the UK you might know the show better as Deadly Nightmares.
The Hitchhiker refers to a central character (Page Fletcher) that connects the otherwise unconnected episodes, he’s a mysterious stranger who wanders into towns to find tales of mystery and or horror unfolding.
The show lasted from 1983 to 1991 in one form or another, hopping channels from it’s original home on HBO before finding a home on the USA Network for it’s final two seasons.
It actually had it’s fair share of properly impressive guest stars over the years, you can find a full list on the WIkipedia page for the show but some highlights include Gary Busey, Willem Dafoe, Helen Hunt, Carrie-Anne Moss and Elliot Gould. The DVD releases love to splash their names over the covers even though they weren’t “famous” at the time.
I won’t lie, I’ve only ever watched one episode of this show, this one, obviously. And, well, it’s weird. Which is probably why I’ve only ever watched this one. I don’t mind weird normally, but this is not in a good way weird.
As the episode starts we meet Simon (Steve Inwood) who is hard at work on his latest project, various models are covered in mud and hung up with ropes. As he’s taking his photos one of the models complains they are bleeding “Shut up, you’re dead” he hisses in return. Edgy.
His mood ruined with the break in atmosphere and the models getting in his face, he orders his lacky to pay them and send them on their way. He retreats to his trusty bottle of alcohol proclaiming he’s scared, presumably of how far he is willing to go for his art. Or, something.
Cut to a hot sexy blonde who we learn is called Christina (obviously, played by Mrs Madsen), admiring Simon’s work in a gallery “If only he’d shoot me” she gushes, “instant fame”. Her unimpressed suitor convinces her it’s time to leave, but just as they exit the building Simon arrives at the exhibit.
Not wanting to miss the chance to meet one of her idols she runs back inside and abandons her young gentleman. As he makes his way down the street he passes The Hitchhiker.
“Christina wants fame, at any price. Simon wants a perfect masterpiece. Each will learn the cost of fulfilling each others desires” he proclaims.
Simon enters the exhibit, his guests fawning all over him and applauding like he’s a Rock Star, as one patron throws praise at him he growls that he doesn’t care what they think and pulls a machine gun from under his robe. He uses the gun to clear a table of some champagne glasses and stands on top, exciting Christina. “Would you like to see a suicide, huh?” he shouts, putting the barrel of the gun in his mouth. Instead of pulling the trigger he turns the gun on the crowd, threatens a mass killing instead and starts firing into the crowd and on his own pictures. Which obviously earns him a standing ovation once calm is restored. Because, art.
Christina is in awe, “Incredible” she whispers, “You’re incredible” in Simons direction, unheard.
She chases after him as he leaves the building, begging to be his next subject. Most men would be flattered, it’s Virginia after all. Not Simon, cool as a cucumber he asks if she has any family waiting for her before coldly telling her “Model for me, you have to be a victim, a slave”
Christina agrees, Simon whisks her off in his car.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd you get the idea of how pretentious and full of crap this is.
Christina does what Simon wants to the nth degree, letting him do whatever he wants to her. She complies to a sickening degree. Anything in her pursuit of fame and fortune. Eventually, and I kid you not – Simon devises a maze for her to escape from. What’s she escaping from? LASERS! Because of course she is.
You’ll have to watch the episode to get the full extent of just how, arty, this whole thing is.
Virginia’s acting here, is not great. Given the material it’s not surprising. Nobody here acts well or does themselves any favours to be fair, she’s not on her own. I say “not great” but there are some flashes of talent (not a euphemism, but, yeah that as well – it’s that kind of show) once the initial pandering wears off from the start.
It’s hard to recommend this one for any reason. I just don’t like it. I did a little Googling as I was watching the episode and I’m not the only one who finds it weird. I did also read it’s out of place as an episode of the show so maybe the other episodes aren’t so bad.
Availability:
It’s actually not hard to find The Hitchhiker on DVD from America. The trouble is finding the particularly episode you want. Because of the anthology nature of the series there was no need to put episodes together in the correct order, or even it seems with episodes from the same seasons. I had to check various listings to make sure I got a version with the actual episode on. It doesn’t help that they all have similar covers so you really do have to check.
Bit of a mystery this one, and something somewhat of an Internet legend.
The brainchild of Michael and Gerald Cuesta along with Michael Atkinson, Babylon Field would do a slightly different take on the whole mindless Zombie thing. Their Zombies would be resurrected with their minds and bodies intact and simply want to get on with their, lives.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason the show wouldn’t make it past the Pilot, but a few years later it’d leak. It seemed to catch a little fire online and peak a little interest from those who saw it. It’s not in HD or anything, far from it. It’s like a VHS copy, but given the site you’re on I’m going to assume you don’t need to see everything in HD.
A few years later in 2010 The Walking Dead came along and put some, life, into the undead genre,
With that NBC decided to try and jump start the Babylon Fields project again and commissioned another Pilot.
But once again, it never went beyond the Pilot stage. Very little is known about it, it’s never leaked unfortunately. Well, not yet at least.
Articles from the time suggest that Virginia Madsen played Rhonda Wunch, she’d be the Mother of a Disease Control Scientist named Thomas (Kylie Schmid). Thomas would have ties to a Janine (Meagan Good). Skeet Ulrich was going to play a dual role, one a Priest and the other his junkie twin brother who returned from the dead.
And, that’s about all I could piece together about this one.
Anyways… If you want a taste of what could have been you can always try and track down the leaked pilot of the 2007 version, it sometimes pops up on sites like YouTube.
Now then. Zombie High. Where to start, or even – What to say?
So. Zombie High, is a horror comedy from 1987, It’s also known as The School That Ate My Brain.
And, you’ll wish someone would actually eat your brain as you watch this one. If you watch this one, I wouldn’t recommend it. I mean, I like “bad” films, but this is, terrible.
Virginia Madsen takes on the role of Andrea who gets a scholarship to a prestigious school, Ettinger. However, it quickly comes to her attention that everything at the school might not actually be as it should be.The plot is, I don’t know to be honest – I won’t lie, I picked up the recent re-release of this on Blu-Ray and tried to watch it but I could only get so far before my interest fell off a cliff. I mean it when I say it’s not even a good bad movie to watch. I know there are some people who get some kind of kick out of this kind of movie, but that isn’t me.
The basic idea is that Andrea starts at a new school with her boyfriend, Barry (James Wilder). It’s not long before they discover a plot to turn all the unruly students into model citizens of society by swapping out their brains.
I know I gave Class some stick, but this is much more the kind of “first film” you’d expect to see from an up and coming actress. Virginia Madsen already had Electric Dreams and Dune under her belt before she signed on for this.
There aren’t even any real Zombies in it, it’s more a Stepford Wives kind of deal with the students of the school being “changed”.
To be fair, and for what it’s worth – Virginia Madsen does seem to play it relatively straight in this one, she’s not dialling it in as much as you might think. From the bits I saw (I obviously paid more attention when she was on screen) she does a more than competent job and makes the most out of what she’s got to work with. Not exactly the best place to advertise her acting skills, but I guess it shows a good work attitude / ethic if nothing else.But, I can safely say this one confuses me. I mean, there are other films where I can’t help but wonder “why?” that she’s been in over the years but this one truly boggles my mind. Did she lose a bet?
She’s not on her own to be fair, Sherilyn Fenn, Richard Cox, Paul Feig and quite a few other famous faces from film and TV can be found lurking around in this one.
I’m not going to rip this to pieces here, there are plenty of other sites doing that much better than me with my recent half-watch of this.
To be fair, the film does have its fans as well – I assume it has some kind of following or it wouldn’t have gotten the blu-ray release. For that, at least, I’m grateful, as a collector.
At the risk of repeating myself, I won’t ever understand “why?” though. It had to be the losing a bet thing, right?
Availability:
Not bad if you’re after the Blu-Ray. 88 Films recent release (the one I bought) is still easy to get hold of on all the sites you’d expect, if not there then eBay and Amazon aren’t short of them. Some copies come with a DVD version of the film as well – I couldn’t find a standalone version on DVD, so you might have to get the Blu-Ray just to get the DVD.
I also noticed that the VHS copy isn’t hard to find on eBay either, if that’s your thing. Obviously not as plentiful as the Blu-Ray but it’s worth checking for.
And, if you just want to watch it without fear of commitment then you can also check out YouTube to see what you can find.
Very much a supporting role for Virginia Madsen in this one, she plays Jane, the evil sister who kicks out Nell when she least needs it. Seriously, in and out, wham bam, thank you Virginia. Quite possibly the first time I’ve ever been disappointed renting a film with Virginia in it, back in the day.
