811 Mute Witness ( 1995 )

 This  is  a  good horror  thriller, set  in  Russia to save money,  which balances out  the  tension and violence with a surprising amount of black humour. Billy Hughes, a  mute make up artist  is in Moscow working on a dire slasher film directed by her sister's boyfriend Evan Richards. Revisiting the studio late at night, she stumbles on two of the Russian crew making a snuff film and barely escapes with her life but her problems are only just beginning. The film is notable for a brief  cameo from Alec Guiness filmed ten years earlier when the director buttonholed him at a film festival;that's why he addresses his Russian minion by an English name.

Marina Zudina ( as Billy )

Sex : Billy flashes her body to a peeping tom in the hope he can rescue her

Death : Survives

Marina was a last minute replacement for Gina Bellman and did not speak English . She is a native of Moscow  and  this is the only non-Russian production on hr c.v.. She  is a widow with two children and hasn't  worked since 2020.

Fay Ripley ( as Karen )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Fay was  born in Wimbledon. This was her first film, having been cut out of Frankenstein in 1994. She  made  her name as Jenny in Cold Feet  starting out in 1998 and  has never been out of work on British TV since.

Larisa Khusnullina ( as Victim )

Sex : Has Sex with her killer in the snuff film

Death : Stabbed repeatedly to death 

This is  the only non-Russian production among her 7 credits.

Olga Tolstetskaya ( as Actress )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Again, Olga's career has been entirely spent in Russia.

Natalya Polyushkina  as Natasha

Sex : No

Death : Survives

This is Natalya's only screen credit, performing the same function on the real set as she does on screen.

810 The Prophecy (1995)

 With Christopher Walken in the lead  role, I had high hopes for this  one  but they were to be mostly disappointed. There are good moments, mainly provided by Walken, but they  are  defeated by writer-director Gregory Widen's attempts to write a sequel to the Bible on the back of a fag packet. Elias Koteas plays Thomas a  student priest who bails out at his ordination due to horrific visions of the Afterlife. Years later he's a cop visited by a strange man Simon (Eric Stolz) who eludes to a second war between angels  in which Gabriel (Walken) is on the wrong side. From that point on, it just gets sillier by the ninute and by the time Lucifer (Viggo Mortensen) arrives to give tactical advice to the goodies, it's a lost cause.

Virginia Madsen (as Katherine )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Virginia was born in Chicago and is the sister of Michael Madsen. She made her film debut in 1983 in Class and worked steadily in film and TV, enjoying her highest profile in 1992 with the lead role in the  original Candyman. She is married with one son and is still a very busy actress.

Moriah  Shining Dove Snyder (as Mary)

Sex : N/a

Death : Survives

Moriah was born in Boise and has Native American ancestry. She  won a beauty pageant at  two  and soon became  a  child star in musicals, home  schooled to accommodate her itinerant career. She made her film debut in The Brady Bunch Movie just before this one. She repriised the role of Mary in the third Prophecy film at 17 but that's her last screen credit. She is married with three children.

Amanda Plummer ( as Rachel )

Sex : No

Death : Killed when Thomas crashes the truck in which they're struggling

Amanda is the daughter of Christopher Plummer. Although she is most feted for her theatre work , she has still  amassed a huge number of screen credits in a career which is ongoing. She  is  most prominent in Pulp Fiction as Tim Roth's sidekick.

809 Lord of Illusions (1995 )

 This Clive Barker effort  was based on one of  his own  short stories which is somewhat ironic as its main fault is that it's too long. The  lengthy prologue sees a Manson-like cult figure Nix ( Daniel Van Bargen ) despatched by Dorothea,  a young girl he has kidnapped and a group of defectors led by star pupil Swann (Kevin O Connor ) who come to rescue her, though they all fear he might return, Swann later maries Dorothea and finds fame as an illusionist using some of the occult magic Nix has taught him but  she  worries and hires a private eye Harry (Scott Bakula) to protect him. The finished film was heavily edited but it's still  neatrly two hours long so you don't  expect lirritating loose  ends  and seemingly  pointless diversions. It's not terrible but could have been a lot better.

Famke Janssen ( as Dorothea )

Sex : Dorothea has sex with Harry

Death : Survives

Famke is originally from Amsterdam and first came to the USA  as a fashion model. In 1992 she  switched to acting, Making a first impression in Goldeneye in 1995. She is  best known for playing Jean Grey in the X-Men franchise But she has many other film and TV credits. Her first film as director Bringing Up Bobby in 2011 was poorly received.

Ashley Lynn Cafalgna ( as Young Dorothea )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Ashley is from Iowa and yhis was her second film aged 12. Her film career was brief and undistinguished but she did better on TV in Saved By The Bell: The New Class and The Bold And The Beautiful. In 2001 , she married Anthony Tesoro and  gave up acting  for  helping run a Christian ministry and  occasionally releasing  EPs of religious songs. They have two children.

Sheila Tousey ( as  Jennifer )

Sex : No

Death : Runs in front of a car

Sheila is a Native American actress from New Mexico who first appeared in 1992's Thunderheart. She  is well known in the Native American  sphere where she has won awards. Her film career ended in 2005  but she is still active in theatre.

Susan Traylor ( as Maureen )

Sex : No

Death : Mentioned as having died  but no details

Susan was born in New York  and started acting relatively late, her first film being A  River Runs Through It. Though pretty much a bit part actress in mainstream films such as Heat, she  has been recognised for her work in independent films such as Valerie Flake and The Casserole Club. That said, she is still probably best known for being Bob Dylan's daughter-in-law.

808 Darkman II : The Return of Durant ( 1995 )

 This  sequel to  Sam Raimi's  enjoyable comic book  romp of 1990  was a   straight  to  video  affair as   the original did  better on video than the cinema and Liam Neeson was unwilling to return to the role. Instead Arnold Vosloo replaces him. Vosloo's  been OK as a villain in other movies but he's hopelessly miscast here ,leaving the whole film on the shoulders of Larry Drake, returning as the villain Durrant (who's unfeasibly survived the  helicopter crash into a bridge in the first film  with nothing more than a limp). Drake is great although he's not given as many good lines  this time  round aand the film is a tired effort.

Kim  Delaney ( as  Jill Randall )

Sex : No

Death : Blown up with a car bomb

Kim  is  from  Philadelphia  and worked as a model before  turbing to acting. She made a big impression in her first TV role on the daytime  soap All My  Children  and appeared in the Bratpack film That Was Then This Is Now. Her  career stalled in the late  eighties  but  picked  up again on TV with a starring role in NYPD Blue  for eight years from 1995. She has been married three times and has had a few brushes with the law for drink driving.

Renee O Connor ( as Laurie Brinkman )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Renee  is  from  Texas and first appeared on screen at 17 on the Disney  Channel. Her career was going nowhere very fast until 1995 when she got the part of Gabrielle in Xena : Warrior Princess which  ran to 2001. Now financially secure she started her own film company and has dabbled in directing and producing while still acting. She is married with two children.

807 Village of the Damned ( 1995)

 John Carpenter's  fairly  faithful remake of  the 1960 sci-fi classic  ( itself based on John Wyndham's  The Midwich Cuckoos ) was  a box office bomb, at least in part  due to the proliferation of  somewhat shopworn names in the cast.. Christopher Reeve ( in his last role as an able-bodied man)  plays the smalltown doctor who has to make sense of a mass blackout and mass pregnancy which gives rise to a hive-minded group of children with dangerous psychic powers and the inclination to use them.

For a film with such a poor  reputation , it's never less than watchable  with Carpenter able  to  implant some grisly shocks to  lift  it  out  of  made-for-TV land.

Linda Kozlowski ( as  Jill McGowan)

Sex : No

Deatth : Survives

Linda  was  born in Connecticut  and had some  Broadway and TV experience before  her first film role as Sue Charlton in the runaway success of 1986, Crocodile Dundee. She  soon began a romantic relationship with co-star Paul Hogan and they married in 1990. The  association with Hogan overshadowed the restof her career and after filming the third Dundee film in 2001 she quit acting, dissatisfied with the roles she was being offered. She and Hogan divorced in 2014 . She married a Moroccan national in 2017 and now helps him run a tour company there. 

Kirstie Alley (as Dr Verner )

Sex : No

Death : Compelled to stab herself with a scalpel

Kirstie was born in Kansas and originally came to Los Angeles as an interior designer. She first attracted attention in Star Trek The Wrath of Khan in 1982  but  really broke through on television first in North and South then Cheers. Film fame came in 1989  with Look Who's Talking. Her career  gradually declined thereafter,  partly  due  to her commitment to Scientology and a court case over a weight loss programme she was promoting , but was always able to find work on TV.  She died of colon cancer in 2022.

Meredith Salenger ( as Melanie )

Sex : No - she is a virgin

Death : It is implied she shoots herself voluntarily

Meredith  seems  a  little  too old  for  her role in this  one.

Pippa Pearthree ( as Sarah )

Sex : No

Death : Compelled to immolate  herself

Pippa  is a character actress from Baltimore who has mainly worked  in TV. Her last credit was in 2021 so she may have retired.

Constance Forslund ( as Callie )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Constance was from  San  Diego. She started acting in the early seventies and had a minor art in The Way We Were. She was a bit part actress in films but worked in TV up to 2019.

Karen Khan ( as Barbara )

Sex : No

Death : Compelled to throw herself off a cliff  

Karen was  born in New Jersey  and began her acting career with a  decent role in  the  notorious turkey Inchon after which she  barely worked for a decade. She eventually settled into a solid career as  a  bit part actress.

Lindsey Haun ( as Mara )

Sex : N/a

Death : Killed in an explosion

Lindsey was born in Los Angeles and already had a number of  TV appearances to her credit before landing this role. She  has  worked mainly in TV as an adult with a run in True Blood. She  also dabbled in music in the noughties.

Jessye Quarry ( as Dorothy)

Sex : N/a

Death : Killed in an explosion

806 Candyman 2 : Farewell To The Flesh (1995)

 Originality  is  in  short  supply in  this  tepid  sequel to the 1992 film. Tony Todd returns as the titular slasher and there's some continuity from the original movie . The  narrative  seems mainly  concerned with fleshing out his  back story, in the process creating a plot  hole so blindingly obvious a  four year old could spot it. That apart , it's  not  outrageously  bad, just tedious and mechanical.

Kelly  Rowan ( as Annie )

Sex : Annie has sex with her husband (offscreen )

Death : Survives

This  turned out to be  the biggest role in Kelly's film career. She  also looks  remarkably like Gwyneth Paltrow in this.

Fay Hauser ( as Pam Carver )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Fay is  a  character actress who has worked mainly in TV from 1978 to the present day.

Caroline Barclay ( as Caroline Sullivan )

Sex : Caroline has slept with Candyman in the back story

Death : Survives 

This was another minor film role for Caroline.

Clotier Bordeltier ( as Liz )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

This was Clotiel's only film role.

805 The Mangler (1995)

 Tobe Hooper adapting a Stephen King short story sounds good doesn't it ? This isn't, not by a long way. In fact, I'd say this film is even worse than Maximum Overdrive. Ted Levine is Hunton, a detective investigating a series of  industrial accidents at an industrial laundry plant aided by a hippy brother-in-law who  dabbles in the occult and divines that - somehow- the demonically possessed press machine is to blame. Levine is terrible, gargling the dreadful dialogue and  flitting  between his  only two facial expressions but he's outdone by Robert Englund as the factory boss Gartley, a way over the top pantomime turn. The film is far too long, has more holes than plot and wafer-thin characters that make it a loud, gory  and pointless bore.

Vanessa Pike ( as  Sherry )

Sex : No, she's a virgin

Death : Survives

Vanessa was a South African actress. This  was her  second fillm and seemingly her last appearance in a US production. Her  subsequent appearances were on  TV or film in South Africa and she seems to have retired in 2011.

Lisa Morris (as Lin Sue)

Sex : Lin Sue is Gartley's mistress

Death : Squashed in the mangler

This  was Lisa's only film role.

Ashley Hayden ( as Annette )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Ashley  also appears to have been South African and appeared in a number of the same productions as Vanessa Pike. She was last seen playing Margaret Thatcher's daughter-in-law in a Tv movie in 2006.