827 Wishmaster (1997)

 Wes  Craven kicked off a new  franchise with this one which is notable for the number of horror icons from both in front of and behind the  cameras making cameos. The Wishmaster is a djinn from the Middle East set free from imprisonment in a gemstone who grants wishes in a malevolent fashion to anyone he comes across but needs to secure three from a young analyst to achieve world domination. With a dazlling array of special effects and a plain Jane heroine this does seem like something new but there's a campy feel which makes it difficult to love.

 Tammy Lauren ( as Alexandra )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Tammy is from San Diego and began her career s a child actress in the late seventies. She was primarily a TV actress with a smattering of film credits , this one being her only starring role. She retired in 2014.

Wendy Benson ( as Shannon )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Wendy  was born in New Tork but is part-Scottish. She too is seen mainly on TV but her career is ongoing. She is married to actor Michael Landes.

Gretchen Palmer ( as Ariella)

Sex : No

Death : Turned into a showroom dummy but it gets reversed

Gretchen is from Massachusetts and worked her way up from bit parts to more substantial roles in independent films such as Trois in 2000. She hasn't been seen since a brief run in NCIS; Los ANgeles

826 Snow White : A Tale of Terror (1996)

 This amounts to a de-Disneyfication of the Grimm's fairy tale in an attempt to recapture something of the darkness of the original story. It balances things out by making Snow White something of a spoiled brat and her stepmother worthy of at least some sympathy. And this being the nineties. there's only one dwarf ; the other half dozen miners are normal-sized. Filmed in the Czech Republic this looks good and has some sterling performances but does suffer from the basic problem that you  already know how the story plays out.

Sigourney Weaver (as Claudia )

Sex : Claudia has sex with her husbnd

Death : Crushed by debris in a fire

Because the film didn't get a theatrical release  Sigourney was nominated for an Emmy for her performance rather than a film award.

Monica Keena ( as Lilly )

Sex : Monica narrowly escapes being raped

Death : Survives

Monica as born in NYC  and made her film debut in 1993 in While You Were Sleeping.Besides this one her major roles were in Crime ad Punishment In Suburbia and Freddy vs Jason  and Dawson's Creek on TV. She has an on/off relationship with Edward Furlong.

Joanna Roth (as Lilianna)

Sex : No

Death : Fatally injured in a coach crash

Joanna was born In Denmark and made her film debut as Ophelia in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1990. She has primarily  worked in British TV often alongside her husband, Scottish actor John Hannah.

Taryn Davis ( as little Lilly)

Sex : n/a

Death : Survives

Taryn was Little Miss America in 1991. This was her only film  role. Her only appearance as an adult was a small role in the TV series iCarly in 2007.

Dale Wyatt ( as Ilsa )

Sex : No

Death : Uncertain, possibly dies in the fire

Dale was a bit part actress whose film career began with Troll in 1986. After this film, she began a second career as  a  dialogue coach and soon dropped acting  to concentrate on that. She continues to be much in demand.

825 Mimic (1985 )

 This  film is  stylish  but  too long and at  times patently ridiculous. Much  of  the  story has already happened by  the  start of the  film : a young entomologist has solved a  children's epidemic caused by cockroaches by creating a mutant insect to wipe out the infected horde. You hardly need me to tell you where the story goes from there apart from the fact there's an autistic boy involved who's entirely superfluous and that Jeremy Northam is horribly miscast as the romantic lead,

Mira Sorvino ( as Susan Tyler )

Sex : Susan has some bathtime foreplay with her husband

 Death : Survives

Mira  is the daughter of Sopranos star Paul Sorvino and had an uncredited role in his film The Stuff in 1985 when she was 17. Her first credited film role was in Amongst Friends in 1993, a film that starred her grandfather. She escaped her family's shadow in 1995 when she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Mighty Aphrodite. While she  has never quite lived up to that early promise she works steadily and is  also a UN ambassador on human trafficking.

Alix Koromzay ( as Remy )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Alix is of Hungarian extraction  and made her film debut in 1990 with a tiny role in Kindergarten Cop. She  was essentially a bit part actress but  got to reprise her role in Mimic 2. Her career appeared to have ended in 2006 but she popped up again in 2024's The Lost Coast.

824 Event Horizon (1997)

 This  science fiction horror film is  essentially a darker take on the Russian classic, Solaris  although there's  a  fair  helping of  Alien's claustrophobic creepiness too . Larry Fishburne  heads  a  rescue  crew to a spaceship that disappeared  seven years earlier which includes the ship's designer  Dr Weir ( Sam Neill). As soom as they board the lost ship,  bad things start to happen and they gradually realise that .the  evil lies in the ship itself. It  wasn't a  box office success and some  of  the  characterisation is a bit thin but  I  like its nihilistic tone.

Joely Richardson (as Starck)

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Joely is the surviving daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and made her film debut as  a  toddler alongside younger sister Natasha in their father's film The Charge Of the Light Brigade in 1965. Her first acting appearance, after abandoning her ambition to be a tennis player, was in the 1985 film Wetherby playing hr mother's younger self. Since  then she has enjoyed a steady career , marked  by poor choices in film ( Shining Through, Loch Ness) and success on TV ( Lady Chatterley, Nip/Tuck ) . She  is still very active in both media.

Kathleen Quinlan ( as Peters )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

        

Kathleen  was born in Pasadena and  began acting as a teenager in 1973 with a small role in American Grafitti  and a numberof TV appearances. She  was regularly seen in the eighties but reached the pinnacle of her career with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Apollo 13 in 1995. She is still active.

Holley Chant  ( as Claire )

Sex : No

Death : Claire is an apparition having previously slit her wrists in the bath

Holly's acting career began in 1991 with an appearance in LA. Law. Her last two TV  appearances were on British TV so one assumes she moved to the UK. She disappears after 2005.

823 Anaconda (1997)

 One  of  the  best so bad it's good movies , dodgy cast, terrible CGI, not  even the briefest acquaintance with scientific reality and  the very definition of chewing the scenery from Jon Voigt. A  group of scientsts go to the Amazon and meet up with a giant snake and a  madman Serone (Voigt) who's hunting it.

Jennifer Lopez ( as Terri )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Jennifer was born to Puerto Rican parents in The Bronx. She began her career as a professional dancer. Shebranched into acting in 1986 with a part in the film My Little Girl in 1986.but it would be another decade to her breakthrough role in Selena. Two years later, she branched into music with immediate  success which made her a global superstar. Her career has survived critical disasters in both fields such as Gigli and Jenny From The  Block but  she is still a major player in the entertainment industry. She has been married four times with Ben Affleck her most prominent partner.

Kari Wuhrer ( as Denise)

Sex : Denise starts making out with her boyfriend nut is interrupted

Death : Serone breaks her neck with his legs

Kari is  the  second  female in this film. 

822 The Relic (1997 )

 This  is  an entertatining  uncomplicated monster movie about a professor taking a potion in the Amazon and turning into a monster that wreaks havoc in a museum during an exibition premiere. Tom Sizemore plays  the  cop  on  his  tail.

Penelope Ann Miller ( as  Dr Green )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Penelope  was born in Los Angeles  and began making waves in 1985 when she made her TV and Broadway debuts. She made her film debut in the 1987 sports film Hotshots and  gradually built  her  profile  until she  was getting lead female roles in films like Carlito's Way and The Shadow. She was previously married to Will Arnett.

Lynn Alicia Henderson ( as Perri Masai )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

This  was  the  first film role for Lynn who is primarily a  TV actress best known for her 15 year stint as a paramedic in ER. 

821 Bad Moon (1996)

 Lassie meets The  Howling  in  this  flat-footed werewolf movie. Actually there's a  striking  opening  scene  and a neat Carrie-ish jump scare at the end; it's what's in betwen that's the problem. There's a complete lack of suspense. With only half a dozen people in the cast, it's obvious from the start who the werewolf is ( Michael Pare ) and you wonder why it takes his supposedly clever lawyer sister so much longer than her dog to work it out. It's also slow moving with some of the scenes padded out to make up the running time.

Mariel Hemingway ( as Janet )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Mariel is Ernest Hemingway's grandaughter and made her film debut at  14  alongside sister Margaux in the 1976 film Lipstick. Three years later she had an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for Manhattan . Her  career declined in the late eighties garnering two Razzle nominations for Superman IV and Sunset  and the nineties weren't much kinder with the failure of the TV series Central Park West.  Nevertheless she  continues to work and advocates for mental health causes. She has oftenplayed lesbian characters though she is straight herself.

Johanna Lebovitz (as Marjorie)

Sex : Marjorie is having sex with her boyfriend when a werewolf attacks

Death : Mauled to death by a werewolf

Johanna is primarily a TV actress who has only made one other film ,Rabbit (2019)  which won her a Leo Nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She has been inactive since 2020.

820 Thinner (1996)

  A  Stephen King  adaptation , this concerns Richard Halleck ( Robert John Bourke ) , an obese and amoral lawyer who attracts a gypsy's curse to grow ever thinner after crony-ism gets him off a manslaughter charge. The make-up folks  rise to the technical challenge of  depicting his physical decline but in all other  respects it's  unsatisfying mainly due  to the sheer unattractiveness of all the main characters; there is no one for whom you can root.

Lucinda Jenney ( as Heidi )

Sex : Heidi gives Richard a blow job in his car

Death :  Dies after eating a poisoned pie

Lucinda  was born  on Long Island and her long acting career beegan on TV in 1979  in The  Doctors. She  first appeared on film in 1984  and began a long  run of small roles in successful movies including Peggy Sue Got Married, Bor On The 4th of July, Rain Man, Thelma and Louise and Leaving Las Vegas. She has had meatier roles in independent films and plenty of TV work.

Kari Wuhrer ( as Gina )

Sex : Gina sexually taunts Halleck

Death : Survives

Kari  is  from  Connecticut. She  has been a model and singer as well as an actress. She made her film debut in 1996  in the teen drama  Fire With Fire.. She  found  success in  TV with regular roles in Swamp Thing, Class of 96 and Sliders later in the decade.She seems to have been retired since 2018.

Bethany Joy Lenz ( as Linda )

Sex : No

Death : Alive at the end of the film but she has eaten some of the poisoned pie

Bethany was born in Hollywood and at 15 this was her first film. Her  main success has been on TV starting  with  Guiding Light between 1998 and 2000  but  most  notably  One Tree Hill between 2003 and 2012. She was  involved in a religious  cult for many years  and now supports an anti-exploitation charity. She is a recording artist but hasn't had much success.She is currently in the TV series Hope Valley 1874.

819 The Island of Dr Moreau (1996)

 This is one of those radioactively bad films that blights the  careers of most of those involved with them. This third adaptation of HG Wells'  novel warning on messing about with human genetics, moves the story to a contemporary setting with a horribly miscast David Thewlis as a shipwreck survivor who is brought to an island where mad Dr Moreau ( Marlon Brando in his last substantial screen role) and equally unhinged sidekick Montgomery (Val Kilmer ) hold court amid a population of human/animal hybrids . 

 The only  thing that can be praised is  the make-up. The endlessly rewritten script is incoherent and illogical. The obsese Brando, far more  grotesque than any of his creations, gives  a  lazy  self-indulgent performance and Kilmer, beset by  offscreen problems, seems to begrudge every line he's been given. The film's descent into mindless violence in the last 20 minutes is  the  crowning touch.

Fairuza Balk ( as Aissa )

Sex : No

Death : Hung by one of her brothers

Fairuza  gives one of the film's better performances but  it's still hard to care what happens to her.

818 Darkman III : Die Darkman Die (1996)

 Quickly following  Darkman II  , this one retains Arnold Vosloo but  loses  Larry Drake which should have been the kiss of  death. Well actually it was commercially speaking but this is actually a much better film. Jeff Fahey comes on board as ,the new supervillain Rooker who's interested in replicating Darkman's strength for his own purposes. It  begins unpromisingly but  some unexpected plot  twists  in a  well strucured narrative  make  it more engrossing than its predecessors. Vosloo's  wooden delivery ensures the emotional scenes don't work but its a decent film.

Darlanne Fluegel (as Bridget)

Sex : Bridget initiates sex with Rooker but they are interrupted

Death : Shot by Rooker's hitman

This  was  Darlanne's final film role.

Roxann Dawson ( as  Angela)

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Roxann is from Los Angeles and made her film debut  in 1985  as  a  dancer in A Chorus Line. Her  acting career was  spent  mainly on TV and in 1995 she landed the role of Lt Torey in Star Trek:Voyager. That led to her econd career as a  TV  director which is ongoing. Her last acting role was in 2011.

Alicia Panetta  (as Jenny )

Sex : n/a

Death : Survives

Alicia was a child actress from Canada. This was her only film role and she left acting in 1998. She  is now a risk manager for a construction company and a charity fundraiser. 

817 The Craft (1996)

This  was  a  successful teen horror about  four  girls who  dabble in the supernatural to achieve,. in three cases at least , fairly normal teenage ends. Of  course there's a  price to pay for  the  witchcraft. It's not very scary and there's no gore at all bar a few scratches bu  it's  moderately thrilling teen  entertainment.

Robin Tunney ( as Sarah )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Robin  is  from Chicago and of Irish heritage. This was her third film and first starring role. She had a strong  run in lead female roles  in the following  decade probably peaking with End  of  Days in 1999. As she started slipping down the cast lists in the late noughties she went into TV with a long run in The Mentalist. She is still active in both media.

Fairuza Balk ( as Nancy )

Sex : Nancy has sex with Sarah's boyfriend in her guise

Death : Survives but her mind has gone

Fairuza was born in California but  moved to Canada at a young age. She made her film debut at 11 as Dorothy in Return To Oz and kept things bubbling until this role brought her stardom. She has  worked steadily since but is somewhat typecast in darker roles. She  also  dabbles in music and art.

Neve Campbell ( as  Bonnie )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Neve  was born in Canada  but moved to America after her success in the TV series Party Of Five. Her  success in this role was immediately dwarfed by  the  impact of Scream where she played teen heroine Sydney Prescott, a role she has returned to in all but one of the sequels..Away from Scream , her star has dwindled on film but she has found plenty of TV work. She has been married twice.

Rachel True ( as   Rochelle )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

The  least well -known of the quartet , Rochelle is from New York and found her feet in TV roles on The Cosby Show, Beverley Hills 90210 and  The Freah Prince of Bel Air  before making her film debut in CB 4 in 1994..She  had a couple of good roles following  this  one but  has more  often  been  seen on TV. She  has a  genuine  interest in Tarot  cards  and  has moonlighted as a reader and  published a book on the subject.

Christine Taylor ( as Laura )

Sex :  No

Death : Survives

Christine is from Allentown,Pennsylvania. Her acting career began on TV with a two year run in the comedy western series Hey Dude . Her  film career took off  by landing the role of  Marcia Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel. In 1999, she was working on a failed pilot with Bem Stiller and married him the following year. They have appeared in four  films together including Zoolander. They have two children.

Assumpta Serna ( as Lirino )

Sex: No

Death : Survives

Assumpta is  from  Barcelona  and her career began in Spanish language film in  the  late  seventies. She  appeared in Crime  Story and  Falcon  Crest and then  the British  series  Sharpe  where she met  her husband Scott Cleverdon.She has worked exclusively in Spanish cinema and TV for the past decade.

Jennifer Greenhut ( as Laura's friend 1)

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Jennifer  was  a  former gymnast  and  worked on three films as a production assistant before her film debut in 1994. She was never more than a bit part actress and  her last role was in 2000.

Elizabeth  Guber (as Laura's friend 2)

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Elisabeth made her screen debut as a baby in the 1973 TV movie Go Ask Alice .She  too was  a  bit part actress whose career ended in 2000.

816 Hellraiser IV : Boloodlines (1996)

 Doug  Bradley  returns as Pinhead once more in the fourth instalment of the Hellraiser franchise but  can't lift it out of the doldrums. The narrative shifts between the eighteenth century, 1996 and the 22nd century as  Bruce Ramsay plays three members of the Merchant dynasty facing off against Pinhead and  female demon. It's a neat device but you soon realise there's nothing new in the story as various characters you couldn't give a stuff about  get skewered and torn apart and it just becomes a tedious retread.

Valentina Vargas ( as Angelique )

Sex : Angelique has sex with her master Jacques and attempts to seduce the first  two Merchants

Death : As a human she is fayed alive, as a cenobite she is destroyed by perpetual light

Valentina is  a Chilean actress who  trained in France and made her debut in a French  film. She made an impact in her second film as The Girl in The Name Of The Rose. She  is  still active.

Kim Myers  (as Bobbi)

Sex : No

Death : Survives

This  is  Kim's last horror film to date.

Christine Harnos ( as Rimmer )

Sex : No

Death : No 

Christine is a Canadian actress who made her film debut in teen thriller The Rescue in 1988. After half a dozen  more films , she made her name on  TV as Sarah Greene in E.R. In 2003 she  gave up acting to  study child development, In 2006 she  started the charity Circus Remedy with friends.

Charlotte Chatton ( as Genevieve )

Sex : Genevieve is pregnant

Death : Survives

Charlotte  is  an  English actress who  made  her screen debut as a child in Dramarama in 1988. She had a very minor role in Titanic  and  a  recurring role in Dr Quinn Medicine Woman  but  gave  up  acting in 2001  to pursue a career in screenwriting. She co-wrote the  film Women Of The White  Buffalo.

815 Screamers (1996)

 This  Canadian sci-fi/horror  film  based on a Philip K Dick story was a box office bomb and, though it's not  entirely without merit, it's easy to see why. On a grim radiation-poisoned  planet, there's a civil war  dragging on between a heartless mining company and an Alliance made up of former employees and scientists. The latter have held their own by developing an autonomous killer weapon, the Screamer but  these have started to reproduce by  themselves - how exactly is only one of many plotholes which plague the narrative - and now pose a huge threat to both sides. Peter Weller plays the  Alliance commander  Henricksen who occasionally finds time to be a hero when he's not explaining the plot to the other characters. It looks very good and is intermittently exciting but it makes no sense whatsoever.

Jennifer Rubin ( as Jessica )

Sex : No

Death : Fatally wounded by a lookalike screamer

Jennifer  is the love interest in the film but  there's no instory explanation for why she's there.

Liliana Komorowska (as Landowska)

Sex : No

Death : Presumed killed when the Screamers overrun the alliance base

Liliana was born In Poland  and started acting there in the late seventies. She came to America to feature in the film War And Love , decided to stay there  and  found plenty of work on Tv  and in films such as Her Alibi. In 1991 , she starred in Scanners III : The Takeover  and subsequently married  its director Christian Duguy  who also directed this film.

Leni Parker (as McDonald)

Sex : No

Death : Presumed killed when the Screamers overrun the alliance base

Leni  is  a  Canadian actress whose screen career began in 1990, She is best known  for  her  TV work and in particular the role of Da'An in Earth : Final Conflict. She is still active.

814 Night Terrors (1995)

 This  is a really terrible Canadian shocker which sees an innocent-ish young  girl fall into the clutches of a sado-masochist cult in Egypt presided over by  Chevalier a descendant of Sade himself (Robert Englund ). Ihe  acting is woeful, the script a mess of half-baked ideasnicked from somewhere else, the  climax  dreadfully drawn-out and disappointing, all in all a complete waste of time.

Zoe Trilling ( as Genie )

Sex : Genie is sexually assaulted, has sex wthan Egyptian man  then is drugged for lesbian sex

Death : Survives

Zoe was born in Wisconsin as Geri Betlzler and worked as a juice distributor before breaking into acting. She first appeared as a dancer in Girls Just Want To Have Fun in 1985  but  rarely broke out of bit parts. Her acting career had stalled by 1977 and she became a choreographer and dance teacher. She died in 2023.

Alona Kimhi ( as Sabina )

Sex : Sabina has lesbian sex with Genie

Death : Stabbed by Chevalier

Alona  was born in Ukraine but her parents emigrated to Israel when she was 7. She had a film career in Israel from 1985 but  this  is her only film outside of that and her last screen role. She is now a best-selling novelist in Israel.

Chandra West (as Beth )

Sex : No

Death : Decapitated (offscreen)

Chandra  is  from Alberta  and  trained as a ballet dancer. She  made  her acting  debut on Canadian TV in  1990  and  has been a reliable supporting  actress in Hollywood films such as White Noise. She has been inactive in recent years.

Irit Sheleg  (as Fatima)

Sex : No

Death : Hanged (offscreen)

Irit is another Israeli actress making a one-off appearance in a Western film. She is still active.

813 Haunted (1995 )

 This  British-made  ghost  story set in the 1920s has been largely forgotten  but  it's worth a gander. Obligatory  American, Aidan Quinn plays David, Ash, a sceptical professor of para-psychology still  carrying a burden of guilt over the death of his twin sister Alice in childhood. He accepts an invitation from an old lady Miss Webb ( Anna Massey)  to come to England and investigate the ghosts that are plaguing her. Although the special effects are a  bit ropey and  the obvious use of  body doubles distracting, it's still a  good story and well acted with a twist that I didn't see coming.

Kate Beckinsale ( as Christina )

Sex : Christina has sex with David though it might be an hallucination

Death : Dies in a house fire 

Kate is the daughter of  actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe and had a disruptive  childhood following the shock death of her father when she was just five.. She made her film debut in Much Ado About Nothing in 1993 and  gradually increased her profile through the nineties. At the start of the new millennium she moved to Hollywood . She had a part in the box office bomb Pearl Harbour but really came to the fore in the Undeworld franchise beginning in 2003. She is still very active  balancing big budget action movies with dramatic roles in smaller films. She was in a long term relatioship with actor Michael Sheen and they remain friends.

Victoria Shalet ( as Juliette )

Sex : n/a

Death : Drowns in a lake

Victoria was born in London and started acting from an early age, making her TV debut in a Screenplay episode aged seven. Her film  debut in The Maid came the following year although her career was mainly spent on British television  becoming well known as Harmony Parker in the children's TV series The Queen's Nose. She was less successful as an adult actress and in 2012  decided to give  it  up and train as a therapist.

Geraldine Somerville (as Kate )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Geraldine  is an Irish actress who made her film debut in Close My Eyes in 1983.She  came to attention as DS Penhaligon in Cracker , winning a BAFTA for Best Actress in 1995. She had a regular role in the noughties as the adult Lily Potter in the Harry Potter franchise but  also starred in 2001's  Gosford Park since  when she  has been somewhat  typecast in period roles.

812 Return of the Texas Chainsaw Masacre (1995)

 First time director Kim  Henkel got an unbelievable stroke of luck  when both the unknowns he cast in the lead roles  broke  big shortly after the film's release giving  it  a  publicity boost it didn't deserve. This is by far the worst film in the Chainsaw franchise. The plot is pretty much a  re-run of the first film, differentiated by camp black comedy which doesn't sit well with the amount of misogynistic violence on show. The ending which introduces a bizarre subplot about the illuminati makes no ense whatsoever.

Rene Zellweger ( as Jenny )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Well. even A-listers have to start somewhere. This was Rene's first starring role after a string of bit parts and her first chase scene (some parts of which used a stunt double ) is the best part of the film. A year later she made  her breakthrough  in Jerry Maguire  and her future was assured, In 2001, she landed her signature role in Bridget Jones Diary and has appeared in all four films of the franchise.  In 2003, she won an Oscar for Cold Mountain. After 2010  she took an extended sabbatical but returned in triumph with another Oscar for Judy in 2019.

Tonie Peresnsky ( as  Darla )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Tonie  was  a  Canadian actress who  won  early  plaudits  for  her theatre work. She crossed into  films in 1988  but  remained largely a bit part actress. She retired in 2004 following a family tragedy.

Lisa Marie3 Newmyer ( as Heather )

Sex : No

Death : Heather has her skull crushed by a mechanical leg

Lisa was a native of Texas and this was her screen debut. She made sporadic appearances including  in Sin City (2005) but disappears after 2008.