cryptexcode/MPST huggingface dataset:
Paradise Now
Tags: revenge, murder

Plot synopsis:
Paradise Now follows Palestinian childhood friends Said and Khaled who live in Nablus and have been recruited for suicide attacks in Tel Aviv. It focuses on what would be their last days together.
Their handlers from an unidentified resistance group tell them the attack will take place the next day. The pair record videos glorifying God and their cause, and bid their unknowing families and loved ones goodbye, while trying to behave normally to avoid arousing suspicion. The next day, they shave off their hair and beards and don suits in order to look like Israelis. Their cover story is that they are going to a wedding.
An explosive belt is attached to each man; the handlers are the only ones with the keys needed to remove the belts without detonating them. The men are instructed to detonate the bombs at the same place, a military check point in Israel, with a time interval of 15 minutes so that the second bomb will kill police arriving after the first blast.
They cross the Israeli border, but have to flee from guards. Khaled returns to their handlers, who have fled by the time Said arrives. The handlers remove Khaled's explosive belt and issue a search for Said. Khaled believes he is the best person to find Said since he knows him well, and he is given until the end of that day to find him.
After Said escapes from the guards, he approaches an Israeli settlement. At one point, he considers detonating the bomb on a commercial bus, but he decides not to when he sees a child on board. Eventually, Said reveals his reason for taking part in the suicide bombing. While in a car with Suha, a woman he has fallen in love with — who plays the role of the doubter or the men's conscience — he explains that his father was an ameel (a "collaborator," or Palestinian working for the Israelis), who was executed for his actions. He blames the Israelis for taking advantage of his father's weakness.
Khaled eventually finds Said, who is still wearing the belt and about to detonate it while lying on his father's grave. They return to the handlers, and Said convinces them that the attack need not be canceled, because he is ready for it. They both travel to Tel Aviv. Influenced by Suha, who discovered their plan, Khaled cancels his suicide attack. Khaled tries to convince Said to back off as well. However Said manages to shake Khaled by pretending to agree.
The film ends with a long shot of Said sitting on a bus carrying Israeli soldiers, slowly zooming in on his eyes, and then suddenly cuts to white.
Dracula
Tags: gothic

Plot synopsis:
A great storm rages, and the lunatics at Seward Sanitarium in Whitby are restless. Lucy Seward [Kate Nelligan] goes to help her father Jack [Donald Pleasance] while the sickly Mina Van Helsing [Jan Francis], who is staying with the Sewards, remains in bed. Mina is awakened by the storm and sees a runaway ship. She races down to the beach and comes upon an injured man (Dracula, of course). The next day, Jonathan Harker [Trevor Eve] salvages Dracula's cargo and has Milo Renfield [Tony Haygarth] deliver it to Carfax Abbey where Dracula is staying.Some nights later, the Sewards hold a dinner party and invite Count Dracula [Frank Langella]. Mina is not feeling well, but Lucy and the Count hit it off. Later that night, Dracula comes to Mina's bedroom. The next morning, Mina dies. Seward sends for her father, Doctor Abraham Van Helsing [Laurence Olivier]. Van Helsing arrives just after Mina's burial and, because Seward must pick Van Helsing up at the station, Lucy alone accepts an invitation to dine with Dracula.That night, Mina kills a baby.The next evening, Dracula pays his respects to Mina's grave and meets Van Helsing. Dracula comes to Lucy that night and 'mates' with her. Knowing that Mina is vampire, Van Helsing and Seward track her down and destroy her. Dracula confronts Van Helsing who determines that Dracula casts no reflection in a mirror and thus is the vampire. The next day, while Lucy is held in a sanitarium cell for her own protection, Harker and Van Helsing search out Dracula's coffin at Carfax. But it is empty! During daylight hours? "After my rest, my need is only to stay in darkness," Dracula admits. Harker visits Lucy in her cell only to discover that she is turning vampire. Dracula enters the sanitarium, kills Renfield, and escapes with Lucy.Dracula and Lucy, pursued by Harker, Seward and Van Helsing, begin a wild dash for the shipyard. Although Harker's car suffers axle damage and they must walk, they arrive at the dock just as Dracula's ship clears the harbor. Harker and Van Helsing snatch a boat and catch up with the vessel. They find Lucy and Dracula asleep in their coffin. Van Helsing attempts to stake Dracula, but Dracula awakens in time to stake Van Helsing instead. Just before he dies, Van Helsing hooks a cargo winch in Dracula's back and hoists him up out of the hold into the sun. Dracula is destroyed by the light, and Lucy is released. But Dracula's cape suddenly takes flight, and Lucy smiles. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl.]
Secretary
Tags: pornographic, comedy, boring, flashback, psychedelic, romantic, sadist

Plot synopsis:
Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the socially awkward and emotionally sensitive youngest daughter of a dysfunctional family, adjusts to normal life after having been hospitalized following an incident of dangerous self-harm. She learns to type, and begins to work as a secretary for an eccentric attorney, E. Edward Grey (James Spader), who hires her despite her stilted social skills, unprofessional appearance and scoring higher than anyone he's ever interviewed, which would make her overqualified for the job. Edward explains that it's dull work and they don't use computers; however, Lee remarks that she is okay with these conditions.
Though at first Edward appears to be highly irritated by Lee's typos and other innocuous mistakes, it soon becomes apparent that he is sexually aroused by her obedient behavior. After he confronts her about her propensity for self-injury and commands that she never hurt herself again, the two embark on a BDSM relationship. Lee experiences a sexual and personal awakening, and she falls deeply in love. Edward, however, displays insecurity concerning his feelings for Lee, and he feels shame and disgust over his sexual habits. During this period of exploration with Edward, Lee has also been attempting to have a more conventional boyfriend in Peter (Jeremy Davies), even engaging in lukewarm sex with him. After a sexual encounter in Edward Grey's office, Grey fires Lee.
After Lee is fired from her job, Peter proposes to Lee, who reluctantly agrees to marry him. However, while trying on her wedding gown, she leaves and runs to Edward's office where she declares her love for him. Edward, still uncertain about their relationship, tests Lee by commanding her to sit in his chair without moving her hands or feet until he returns. Lee willingly complies. Hours pass, as several family members and acquaintances individually visit Lee to alternately attempt to dissuade or encourage her while Edward watches from afar, completely taken by Lee's compliance. Because of Lee's refusal to leave the office, she has gained news coverage from the media, which they believe to be a hunger strike. After three days, Edward returns to the office and takes Lee to a room upstairs where he bathes and feeds her. The pair marry and happily continue their dominant-submissive relationship.
Went the Day Well?
Tags: tragedy, suspenseful, murder

Plot synopsis:
The story is told in flashback by a villager, played by Mervyn Johns, as though to a person visiting after the war. He recounts: one Saturday during the Second World War, a group of seemingly authentic British soldiers arrive in the small, fictitious English village of Bramley End. It is the Whitsun weekend so life is even quieter than usual and there is almost no traffic of any kind. At first they are welcomed by the villagers, until doubts begin to grow about their true purpose and identity. After they are revealed to be German soldiers intended to form the vanguard of an invasion of Britain, they round up the residents and hold them captive in the local church. The vicar is shot after sounding the church bell in alarm.
In attempts to reach the outside world, many of the villagers take action. Such plans include writing a message on an egg and giving them to the local paper boy for his mother, but they are crushed when Mrs Fraser's cousin runs over them. Mrs Fraser then puts a note in Cousin Maude's pocket, but she uses it to hold her car window in place; her dog, Edward, then chews it to shreds after it blows onto the back seat. Mrs Collins, the postmistress, manages to kill a German with an axe used for chopping firewood, and tries to telephone elsewhere. The girls on the exchange see her light and decide that she can wait. Mrs Collins waits until she is killed by another German who walks into the shop moments afterwards. The girl at the exchange then picks up the phone, getting no reply.
The civilians attempt to escape to warn the local Home Guard, but are betrayed by the village squire, who is revealed to be collaborating with the Germans. Members of the local Home Guard are ambushed and shot by the Germans. They begin to bow in until a young boy, George, succeeds in escaping; despite being shot in the leg, he alerts the army. British soldiers arrive, and – aided by some of the villagers, including a group of Women's Land Army girls, who have managed to escape, barricade themselves in, and arm themselves – defeat the Germans after a short battle. The squire is shot dead by the vicar's daughter, who had discovered his treachery, as he attempts to let the Germans into the barricaded house. During the battle, many of the villagers who left to fight are wounded or killed; Mrs Fraser is blown up by a grenade and Tom's father wrenches his ankle. The British troops then arrive at Bramley End and all ends well.
The villager retelling the story to the camera shows the Germans' grave in the churchyard and explains proudly that "this is the only bit of England they got".
Le boucher
Tags: mystery

Plot synopsis:
"Le Boucher" (The Butcher) starts with a wedding ceremony in which Paul, a war veteran , encounters Helene, a school teacher. Paul has taken his father's business and owns a butchery in the village. As the ceremony progressed, both seemed to enjoy each other's company while they ate and chatted merrily. That was a happy beginning. Afterwards, the general atmosphere of the film changed. We could feel an eeriness, a sort of awkward silence and emptiness as they walked out of the celebrations. Paul accompanied Helene home and they got separated with a sense of sadness, as if they wanted to stay together. The next day, Paul visited Helene in her classroom and brought a piece of meat, well wrapped, like a flower bouquet. He promised to bring more. Helene enjoyed Popaul's company and could do anything for him. Their relationship deepened, until some unexplained murders started to occur in the village...
Sound of My Voice
Tags: cult, psychological, flashback

Plot synopsis:
In Los Angeles, substitute schoolteacher Peter and aspiring writer Lorna are a couple in their twenties making a film documentary. Their subject is a secretive cult led by the mysterious Maggie (Brit Marling), whom they plan to expose as a fraud.
When the cult considers Peter and Lorna ready to meet Maggie, they are made to shower thoroughly and dress in white surgical gowns. Then they are driven blindfolded to a secret basement location and received by Klaus, with whom they exchange a distinctive, intricate handshake, which they have been practicing. Peter and Lorna then join eight other members and meet Maggie, who uses an oxygen tank and implies that the showering and clothing requirements are to avoid aggravating her illness.
Maggie claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2054. She describes the future as riddled with war, famine and struggle, and has come back to select a special band of chosen people to prepare for what lies ahead. She leads the group in a series of intense psychological exercises and tells them about herself and the future, never proving nor disproving her extraordinary claim. Maggie's charismatic manner is powerful, and both Lorna and Peter have moments in which they waver between skepticism and belief. Lorna is especially concerned when she notices that Peter, who was initially adamant that Maggie was a charlatan, seems to now be intrigued by and even attracted to Maggie.
After several group meetings, Maggie instructs Peter to bring her the eccentric eight-year-old Abigail Pritchett, one of his students. Maggie insists Abigail is her mother, and that Peter and Lorna will be banned from the group if he fails to comply. When Peter admits that he is considering following Maggie's orders, Lorna is outraged and accuses him of falling for Maggie's deception. After they argue, Lorna is privately approached by Carol, a woman who identifies herself as a Justice Department agent. Carol tells Lorna that Maggie is wanted for a variety of felonies. Lorna agrees to set Maggie up to be captured and to hide this plan from Peter.
With Lorna's help Peter arranges for Maggie to meet the student in public, at the LaBrea Tar Pits, during a class field trip. When Maggie meets the little girl, Peter is amazed to see them wordlessly perform the cult's intricate handshake. Abigail asks Maggie how she knew her secret handshake, and Maggie reverently responds: "You taught it to me." Men in police uniforms burst into the room and seize Maggie. As cult members angrily accuse Peter of betraying Maggie, he exchanges a glance with Lorna who smiles slightly, affirming her role in Maggie's capture. Abigail then asks Peter who Maggie was, and he responds, stricken, that he does not know.
Les chevaliers du ciel
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
This is the French "Top Gun" circa 2005, and the title would be better translated "The Knights of the Sky"."Walk'n" Marchelli (Benoît Magimel) and "Fahrenheit" Vallois (Clovis Cornillac) are given an assignment to shoot down a rogue Mirage 2000 that has been hijacked by a secret French agency to test preparedness in a post-9/11 France during a Farnborough Air Show. Walk'n shoots down the plane after it locks onto his wing-man, and they are promptly side-lined and ostracised by the French air Force authorities and 'forced' to train two female pilots from the USA. Stopped from flying with a commercial airline, 'Walk'n" and "Fahrenheit" sign on to that "Special Missions" organisation, that then gets them into a series of situations in which their expertise and moral fibre are tested further.Notably, they fly a race against a flight of F-16s. The flight of three Mirage in which they are flying is forced to the ground and taken captive by mercenaries after an air-to-air refuelling plane is hijacked. They watch one of their fellow pilots be killed, and a female pilot is carried off. They escape: while Walk'n is giving a lesson to a renegade pilot, he disables that man and then activates the ejection seat, lands and picks up Fahrenheit. They straff and destroy one of the other planes before escaping. Meanwhile, one aircraft is disassembled and returned to the Paris region. It then takes off from a disused airfield to join a fly-over of Bastille Day celebrations at which there is also a major European meeting of heads of state.The two heroes work out what is happening, return to the flight line, and join the fly-past to find the rogue aircraft. The 'lost' female pilot is in it, now revealed as a terror sympathiser all along. She ejects, and Walk'n shoots down the plane after waiting for it to leave the built-up area and go over an area of forest within the Paris metropolitan area.Walk'n gets the girl: the "Special Missions" operative.The pace is 'fast', and the characters and the air-to-air photography is 'authentic'.
The Last Schnitzel
Tags: satire

Plot synopsis:
In not too distant future, Earth is dying.The UN calls for an immediate evacuation to Mars. But while leaders of states launch mass evacuations, the President of the Grand Turkish Republic has his own agenda. He demands to eat a chicken schnitzel for once before leaving Earth or else, no one is going anywhere. Kamil, the Chief aid to the President, is charged with the task to find the last schnitzel.Kamil, unsure what to do, first turns to the Minister of Nutrition for help. But all that the Minister can offer Kamil is a bottle of chicken-flavored pills. Kamil then contacts the Worlds Museum of Live Food in Copenhagen upon the suggestion of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Unfortunately, Danish Minister of Museums Skov Jensen tells him that the exhibition was never real. But the simultaneous broadcast of the US Presidents speech exposes Jensens dishonesty. As it turns out, Jensen and other EU States has eaten the whole museums exhibits, which outrages the US President, as he was not invited to the party. In retaliation, he responds by launching all of nuclear warheads, which will hit Europe in one hour.Pressed with time, Kamil takes matters in his own hands making one of the hardest decisions in his life. But his personal sacrifice pays off. He serves the last schnitzel to the President in the nick of time, and to his surprise, the President loves every bit of it.With grand relief, the Grand Turkish Republic shuttles leave for Mars as Earth explodes behind them.
A Patriot Act
Tags: violence

Plot synopsis:
In this off-shoot of George Orwell's 1984, set in modern-day USA in a small Florida town, Tony is a young waiter who is going through life not doing anything out of the ordinary. The War on Terrorism has been going on for a few years now. A little curious of current events concerning terrorists, he goes to a few Internet websites and checks out their Jihadest agenda, political views, Aljazera web TV broadcasts, and on-line beheadings.Tony goes through life as usual, once in a while covering a shift for a friend at work, once in a while hooking up with Kaleam, an Arab co-worker with a great connection to hash that Tony likes to smoke once in a while. Problem is that Kaleam is on the terrorist watch list. His cell is tapped and since Tony has been talking to Kaleam for a while, he is watched as well by unseen Homeland Security agents.One night, Kaleam phones Tony with something special, something that will take him to paradise. Some of the best hash & some killer X for he and his girlfriend to have a great long weekend together. Listening in on this phone conversation, this sets off the alarms. Later that night as Tony sleeps, the TTF (Terrorist Task Force) does a sneak and snatch of his apartment.It's a long holiday weekend. The apartment is raided and Tony and his girlfriend, Jessica, are bagged and swept, drugged and taken away by Homeland Security soldiers. Tony and Jessica are seperated and they go through CIA style questioning from threats of drug charges to the edge and what some would consider torture of beatings since Tony visited Internet sites supporting terrorists and because of his association with Kaleam. Days pass as the interogations continue.The TTF (terrorist task force) realize that Tony is just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time and indeed has no connections to terrorists. The couple are drugged, "programmed" and placed back at home.Tony wakes up the next day, knowing something is wrong but his girlfriend is convinced that they did too much partying. Still thinking something is wrong, he goes to the bathroom to shower and knock the webs out of his head. While shaving, he notices a small needle mark on his neck. He leans into the mirror for a better look. We spin around looking back at Tony through the mirror following a cable up the wall to a blinking box with an antenna attached to a hidden camera on the other side of the mirror.Cut to a plain white van sitting on the side of the road. Going through the blocked out window, we see a man sitting in a surveillance van watching a monitor showing Tony looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. Pulling back, we see the man watching Tony as well as many other people also on surveillence video screens.US Library of Congress register / WGA register 2005
One, Two, Three
Tags: comedy, entertaining

Plot synopsis:
C.R. "Mac" MacNamara is a high-ranking executive in the Coca-Cola Company, assigned to West Berlin after a business fiasco a few years earlier in the Middle East (about which he is still bitter). While based in West Germany for now, Mac is angling to become head of Western European Coca-Cola Operations, based in London. After working on an arrangement to introduce Coke into the Soviet Union, Mac receives a call from his boss, W.P. Hazeltine, in Atlanta. Scarlett Hazeltine, the boss's hot-blooded but slightly dim 17-year-old socialite daughter, is coming to West Berlin. Mac is assigned the unenviable task of taking care of this young whirlwind.
An expected two-week stay develops into two months, and Mac discovers just why Scarlett is enamored of West Berlin: she surprises him by announcing that she's married to Otto Piffl, a young East German Communist with ardent anti-capitalistic views. When the southern belle is confronted about her foolishness in the matter of helping him blow up anti-American "Yankee Go Home" balloons (how the couple met) she simply replies with, "Why, that ain't anti-american, it's anti-yankee... And where I come from, everybody's against the yankees..." Mac tries to come to terms with the fact that he let his boss's daughter marry a communist and learns the horrible truth: The couple are bound for Moscow to make a new life for themselves ("They've assigned us a magnificent apartment, just a short walk from the bathroom!"). Since Hazeltine and his wife are coming to Berlin to collect their daughter the very next day, this is obviously a disaster of monumental proportions, and Mac deals with it as any good capitalist would — by framing the young Communist firebrand and having him picked up by the East German police, using all his wiles, as well as his sexy secretary Fraulein Ingeborg, to get his way. After Otto is forced to listen endlessly to the song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" during interrogation, he cracks and signs a confession that he's an American spy.
Under pressure from his stern and disapproving wife Phyllis (who wants to take her family back to live in the U.S.), and with the revelation that Scarlett is pregnant, Mac sets out to bring Otto back with the help of his new Soviet business associates. With the boss on the way, he finds that his only chance is to turn Otto into a son-in-law in good standing — which means, among other things, making him a capitalist with an aristocratic pedigree (albeit contrived by adoption). In the end, the Hazeltines approve of their new son-in-law, upon which Mac learns from Hazeltine that Otto will be named the new head of Western European Operations, with Mac getting a promotion to VP of Procurement back in Atlanta. Mac reconciles with his family at the airport and to celebrate his promotion, offers to buy them Cokes. Ironically, after handing out the bottles to his family, he discovers that the Coke machine actually has been stocked with Pepsi-Cola.
Chinaman's Chance: America's Other Slaves
Tags: violence, murder, romantic

Plot synopsis:
AMERICA THE LAND OF THE FREE, THE HOME OF THE BRAVE, A MECCA FOR IMMIGRANTS WHERE THE AMERICAN DREAM IS AN INALIENABLE TRADITION. A YOUNG MAN IS ACCUSED OF MURDER. HES ON THE RUN, AN UNDERDOG AND A MAN AGAINST THE ODDS. HE BECOMES A FUGITIVE AND IS VICIOUSLY HUNTED DOWN, IN A TIME WHEN STEALING A HORSE GOT YOU HUNG BUT KILLING A CHINAMAN WAS NO CRIME. CAN THIS YOUNG CHINESE IMMIGRANT (RAILROAD WORKER) FIND JUSTICE? SURVIVE WHILE STRUGGLING FROM WITHIN AND CONFRONTING GREED, RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL DIVIDES. PERSEVERING BIGOTRY, CHEAP LABORAT WHAT PRICE? THIS UNTOLD TALE OF AMERICAS PAST WILL TRANSPORT YOU ON A PROVOCATIVE EAST MEETS WEST JOURNEY. INTERTWINED WITH THE ROOTS OF THE CHINESE THE AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE MEXICANS DRAMATICALLY CLASH WITH AN EMERGING NEW AMERICA. CAN NON-VIOLENCE, PEACE, LOVE REDEMPTION AND FORGIVENESS TRANSFORM THIS VIOLENT LAWLESS, WILD WEST INTO A MORE PEACEFUL, MORAL AND ENLIGHTENED AMERICA? THE STORY BEGINS; I AM SOMEBODY; NO CHANCE IN HELL... 1854: THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DECLARED THE CHINESE AS NON PEOPLE. 1857: THE UNITED STATE GOVERNMENT PASSED THE DRED SCOTT DECISION, DENYING EQUAL JUSTICE AND CITIZENSHIP TO PEOPLE OF COLOR, ALLOWING THEM TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD AS MERCHANDISE. 1882: THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PASSED THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT PROHIBITING THE CHINESE FROM CITIZENSHIP AND ENTERING THE UNITED STATES UNTIL 1943. 2009: THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DECLARED AN OFFICAL APOLOGY TO THE CHINESEAFTER 127 YEARS.
Getting That Girl
Tags: romantic

Plot synopsis:
In the final days of her senior year Mandy Meyers (Gia Mantegna) is forced to change high schools when her father's business moves the family from Washington D.C. to Southern California. As attractive as she is intelligent, Mandy sees McDermott High as a chance to start fresh, have some fun, and try things shes never done before.On Mandys first day of school, Jini Jacobs (Elizabeth Nicole) and Jenna Jeffries (Inbar Lavi), McDermott Highs two prettiest yet cruelest seniors befriend Mandy and attempt to show her the wild side of Southern California high school life. Likewise, the entire male senior class has also taken notice of Mandy, and shes soon being chased by both Andy Wasilewski (Escher Holloway), an apathetic yet charismatic stoner, and Tommy Bush (Drew Gallagher), a star football player. Shocking to many, Mandy falls head over heels for Andy.Although his heart is in the right place, hes rough around the edges and in dire need of parental guidance, spending most school nights in his fathers mansion smoking pot and getting drunk by himself. As Andy and Mandy proclaim their love for each other, Andy gets cold feet; hes never had a long-term girlfriend before. Suffering major commitment issues, he self-destructs and impulsively has sex with freshmen hottie Erika Jacobs (Alexandra Mason), who happens to be Jini Jacobs little sister, in the English Building restroom. Mandy immediately dumps Andy, and he falls into a life-altering depression.Tommy once again pursues Mandy and asks her to the prom. Still furious at Andy, she tells Tommy that shell think about it. To further persuade her, Tommy throws a pre-prom party on Mandys behalf. Thoroughly defeated, Andy decides not to go to Tommys party. But just when he thinks his chances of getting back with Mandy are completely over, his two best friends Ferrat Barrett (Luke Eberl) and Ned Fouler (Will Rothhaar) show up at his house and urge him to come back with them to the party. Mandys still in love with you, they shout at him.Meanwhile, Bill Beauchanon (Daniel Booko), Tommys best friend and Jinis on again/off again boyfriend, drunkenly decides its his turn to pursue Mandy. As Bill forcefully and inappropriately hits on Mandy, she rejects his advances and decides its time to go home. Bill becomes enraged and pushes her to the ground. Luckily, Andy shows up and challenges Bill to a fight. Andy and Bill beat the pulp out of each other, which Andy finally ends by knocking Bill out with a brutal right hook. Andy then looks around, but Mandy is nowhere to be found. Ferrat and Fouler point west, and Andy runs after her. Amidst the streetlights and empty road, Andy catches up to Mandy and proclaims his love for her. Thunder crashes, lightening strikes, and rain falls from the sky... and they kiss.
Red Hill
Tags: revenge, suspenseful, murder, violence, flashback

Plot synopsis:
Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten), a young police officer, relocates to the small town of Red Hill with his pregnant wife Alice (Claire van der Boom). On his first day on the job, he is shown hostility from Old Bill (Steve Bisley), the head of the police force, for being unable to find his gun and getting shot on duty when he couldn't bring himself to fire his weapon on an armed boy.
Shortly afterwards, the police learn that Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis), a convicted murderer who was arrested by Old Bill for killing his wife, has escaped from prison. Knowing that Jimmy will return to town to seek revenge, Old Bill orders his officers and a group of civilians to arm themselves and shoot Jimmy on sight.
Old Bill's men prove to be no match for Jimmy, who remorselessly kills officers and armed civilians. The convict encounters Shane but lets him live. When Shane finds Old Bill, he confronts Bill over the fact that Jimmy spared his life and learns that Bill has refused to call for backup from a nearby town. Shane draws his gun on Bill, but again finds himself unable to fire it and is subsequently knocked out and handcuffed to a table.
Shane escapes and uses a satellite phone at Gleason's farm to contact the nearby police for backup. During the call Shane discovers Gleason (Cliff Ellen) on the verge of hanging himself; when Shane talks to him, the farmer reveals that Jimmy Conway is innocent of the murder of his wife. The murder was the work of Old Bill and his men, who set fire to Jimmy's house after raping and killing his wife, revenge for Jimmy's interference in a proposed railroad extension that would have gone through Red Hill. Gleason informs Shane that he has a written document of what really happened, before committing suicide. Now knowing the real reason why Jimmy returned to Red Hill, Shane returns home to get his gun, which Alice found while he was on duty.
Near the outskirts of town, Old Bill sets stacks of hay on fire to attract Jimmy's attention. Jimmy arrives and kills Bill's last remaining deputies, but is stopped from finishing Bill off when two of Bill's friends arrive and hold him at gunpoint. Shane also arrives and saves Jimmy by shooting Bill's friends after informing Bill that he knows the truth.
The police backup arrives and confront Jimmy as he prepares to get his revenge on Old Bill. Despite Shane's efforts to get him to drop his gun, Jimmy kills Old Bill and is promptly shot by the police. Before dying, the seemingly mute Jimmy tells Shane that his wife was pregnant with his son.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Tags: good versus evil, paranormal, psychedelic, horror, storytelling

Plot synopsis:
A group of Canadian kids, from elementary to high school ages, of different cultural and economic backgrounds, come together once a week at night and share their love of horror by telling scary stories. Their ritual is that each week one kid in the group tells a story. He/she throws sugar into a campfire and declares their story's title. The rest of the episode features the story on-screen. Some of the stories are meant to be scary, others are meant to be funny, but each one usually has a lesson on various topics (bullying, science gone wrong, animal rights, respecting the elderly, friendship, good manners, poverty, moving to a new place, etc.).The show was in competition with Goosebumps, Eerie Indiana, The X-Files, Tales From the Crypt and several other similar shows from the Nineties. At one point, all the members of the midnight society, excluding Tucker, are replaced with younger and very immature kids, and this was the point when the show began to go downhill. Some members of the Midnight Society only lasted two or three episodes, most notably Stig (his name may be short for Stigma). He's a chubby, overweight and lazy kid who never changes his clothes. Nonetheless he told the story 'The Tale of the Dead Man's Float', which became one of the most popular episodes of the show among fans. Two recurring characters were Dr. Vink (a jolly but evil and sadistic old man) and Sardo (a sleazy and shady but benevolent magic shop owner). Both characters often get involved in stories. Dr. Vink usually has dark schemes to lure kids into things, and Sardo usually gets caught up in helping the kids he sells his junky products to.
Scream Blacula Scream
Tags: blaxploitation

Plot synopsis:
After a dying Voodoo queen, Mama Loa, chooses an adopted apprentice, Lisa Fortier (Pam Grier) as her successor, her arrogant son and true heir, Willis, (Richard Lawson) is outraged. Seeking revenge, he buys the bones of Mamuwalde the vampire from the former shaman of the voodoo cult, and uses voodoo to resurrect the vampire to do his bidding. However, while it brings Mamuwalde back to life, he quickly bites Willis upon awakening. Willis now finds himself in a curse of his own doing: made into a vampire hungering for blood and, ironically, a slave to the very creature he sought to control. Meanwhile, Justin Carter (Don Mitchell), an ex-police officer with a large collection of acquired African antiquities and an interest in the occult, begins to investigate the murders caused by Mamuwalde and his growing vampire horde. Justin meets Mamuwalde at a party Justin hosts to display the African collection pieces before being moved to the University's museum. They discuss the artifacts, unbeknown to anyone else, that were from the region of Africa Mamuwalde hails from, including pieces of jewelry once worn by his late wife Luva. Mamuwalde also meets Justin's girlfriend, Lisa Fortier, at the party and he discovers that Lisa is naturally adept at voodoo. Lisa discovers Mamuwaldes' true nature after a friend of hers, Gloria, falls victim to his bite and resurrected as a vampire who nearly feeds on her if not for Mamuwalde's intervention. He later asks her for help to cure him of his vampire curse. Justin, with the help of L.A.P.D. Lieutenant Harley Dunlop (Michael Conrad), pulls together several other cops to go to the Mamuwalde residence to investigate the recent deaths. While Lisa is performing the ritual to cure Mamuwalde, using a voodoo doll fashioned to look like him, Justin, Harley and their men raid the house, fighting against Blacula's vampire minions which include several friends of theirs. Willis is killed during this scuffle. Justin manages to find Lisa and Mamuwalde and interrupts the ritual. Lisa refuses to help Mamuwalde after she witnesses him kill the other police officers in the house in a fit of rage. As Mamuwalde, now calling himself Blacula, is about to bite Justin, Lisa stabs the prince's voodoo doll killing Mamuwalde and destroying the menace of Blacula forever.
Flesh and Bone
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
While helping his grifter father burgle a house in rural Texas, young Arlis Sweeney watches him murder the entire family, leaving only a crying baby. Fast forward 30 years. Arlis has settled into a bleak routine restocking vending machines on a route that includes "a place to eat, a place to sleep, and a woman" in every dusty roadside town. Into this routine falls Kay Davies, another damaged soul down on her luck and stranded away from home and her abusive ne'er-do-well of a husband. Arlis is going that way and agrees to give her a ride. While the two are at her house, movers arrive to take the furniture, which her husband sold to pay gambling debts. Seeing nothing to remain for after a confrontation with her husband, Kay leaves with Arlis. Arlis and Kay begin to fall for each other. In the middle of a rainy night, a knock on their motel door introduces Ginnie, a young woman who makes her living stealing jewelry off corpses in funeral homes. Pleading car trouble, she leads Arlis to her car where his estranged father Roy, who exudes sleaze and criminality, is waiting with a back full of buckshot. Arlis patches up his father and lets the pair spend the night in his room. The next day, they go their separate ways. As Ginnie and Roy pass an abandoned house, Ginnie remarks that it's the same house that's in a photograph that Kay is carrying with her. Roy realizes that Kay must be the crying baby he spared 30 years ago. Roy hates loose ends. Arlis comes to the same realization, and tries to break it off with Kay, leaving her in the motel room with some goodbye cash while he goes on a business errand from which he doesn't plan to return. Possibly changing his mind, he calls Kay's motel and learns that she left with Ginnie. Judging by the directions that the motel clerk said Ginnie asked for, Arlis guesses that they're headed for the old house. In fact, Roy was setting a trap for him. Ginnie tells Kay that there's a surprise in store for them at the old house. Arlis soon arrives, and after Roy sends the girls out for a walk, he and Arlis have a confrontation. Roy says he can't trust Arlis not to tell Kay that he murdered her family, so one of them will have to kill Kay. Instead, Arlis shoots his father. Arlis finds it too painful to be with Kay, and too painful to try to explain her past to her (she was told by her foster parents that her family died in a car crash). He tells her "Some things, it just don't do no good to talk about." Kay doesn't understand, but realizes that she and Arlis aren't going to make it. As he told her, he's a creature of habit, and she doesn't fit in. Regretfully, they part.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Tags: tragedy, romantic, cruelty, murder, melodrama

Plot synopsis:
The gypsy Esmeralda captures the hearts of many men, including those of Captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire, but especially Quasimodo and his guardian Archdeacon Claude Frollo. Frollo is torn between his obsessive lust for Esmeralda and the rules of the Notre Dame Cathedral. He orders bandits to kidnap her, but the hunchback is captured by Phoebus and his guards, who save Esmeralda.
The following day, Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for one hour, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, approaches the public stocks and offers him a drink of water. It saves him, and she captures his heart.
Later, Esmeralda is arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy after seeing him trying to seduce Esmeralda. She is sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre-Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary, temporarily protecting her from arrest.
Frollo later informs Gringoire that the Court of Parlement has voted to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the cathedral and will be taken away to be killed. Clopin, the leader of the Gypsies, hears the news from Gringoire and rallies the citizens of Paris to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda.
When Quasimodo sees the Gypsies, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the King's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and her phony husband Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged.
When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo later goes to Montfaucon, a huge graveyard in Paris where the bodies of the condemned are dumped, where he stays with Esmeralda's dead body until he dies. About eighteen months later, the tomb is opened, and the skeletons are found. As someone tries to separate them, they crumble to dust.
Private Parts
Tags: insanity, comedy, murder

Plot synopsis:
Young Cheryl (pronounced "CHAIR-ul") is a runaway shacking up with her friend Judy. After Judy throws her out for watching her have sex with a guy, Cheryl packs her suitcase and takes off, along with Judy's wallet, and heads out into the sleaziest part of L.A. looking for her long-lost Aunt Martha's rundown hotel.Aunt Martha is a stout, homely woman with no tolerance for worldly ways. She insists that Cheryl wash "that paint" off before joining her for dinner, and lectures her on the evils of sex. Cheryl plays along for a place to stay, but she soon finds out that the hotel is full of loonies of all types. There's a gay priest who has a thing for male bodybuilders, a drunk guy who doesn't do anything except pass out in his room, and an old lady who wanders around looking for a girl named "Alice". Perhaps the weirdest tenant is a reclusive photographer named George, who shows his affection for Cheryl by spying on her through cracks in the wall, leaving her pornographic reading material in her room, and offering her fetish gear to wear for his amusement. Cheryl craves the attention, but she's not aware that people are being murdered in the hotel. A hunky stud who comes looking for Cheryl gets his head cut off with a machete, and the other tenants of the hotel start dropping off too. Cheryl's arrival seems to have set somebody off.Despite Aunt Martha's objections to men, Cheryl secretly begins dating Jeff, a young man who takes an interest in her. She must take great pains to ensure that Aunt Martha doesn't find out.George will not directly interact with Cheryl, choosing instead to spy on her and photograph her. In one of the film's most disturbing scenes, he engages in a most unusual sex act. He fills a vinyl blow-up doll with water, simulating a body as best he can. He dresses it like Cheryl and attaches a closeup photograph of Cheryl's face to the doll's head. He then gets in bed with it and simulates sex, climaxing with a bizarre moment: he draws a syringe of blood from his body and injects it into the doll.Judy shows up at the hotel looking for Cheryl and is murdered while nosing around in the basement. Eventually we learn that Alice, the girl who used to live at the hotel, has met with the same fate, after becoming the object of George's strange affection.Finally all is revealed. Aunt Martha is the one who has gone machete-happy, murdering anybody who interferes with her notion of morality, as well as anybody who will go near George, who is her child. Note that George is not her son--George is actually female, urged by Aunt Martha to avoid embracing feminine wiles. This explains George's need for a syringe to complete the sex act, as well as his unstable condition. It is also suggested that Aunt Martha is not really a woman herself, but rather a man who has adopted the opposite gender to avoid the moral pitfalls of being male.Before Cheryl can fall victim to George and Martha, Jeff and his father intervene with some rather inept policemen. The film concludes as we learn that Cheryl has taken over Aunt Martha's hotel. Has she also taken over Aunt Martha's strange outlook on life?
Paheli
Tags: fantasy

Plot synopsis:
The movie is narrated by two puppets, voiced by Naseeruddin Shah and his real-life wife Ratna Pathak Shah.
Enthusiastic young Lachchi (Rani Mukerji) is to be married to Kishan (Shah Rukh Khan), the son of the rich merchant Banwarlal (Anupam Kher). Kishan is a dutiful son who honors his father's wish to start a new, far-away business on a predetermined auspicious date, which happens to be the day after the wedding ceremony. On the wedding night, Kishan turns away from his wife to finish his bookkeeping, and in the early morning hours sets off on a business trip that is to last five years. Lachchi is devastated; Gajrobai (Juhi Chawla), her husband's sister-in-law, consoles her, empathizing on the grounds that Gajrobai's husband Sunderlal (Sunil Shetty) has also disappeared. The next day, a ghost appears, having taken Kishan's shape and voice because of his own attachment to Lachchi.
Lachchi is thus presented a riddle (hence the title "paheli") between the representation of all of her desires in the form of the ghost and her real husband. She takes this new, fond, sexual, magical, social, self-confident version of Kishan as hers. As Kishan, the ghost befriends all of the real Kishan's family and keeps Bhanwarlal happy by providing him with magical, possibly illusory, gold coins. His only blunder is in his treatment of the messenger Bhoja, who is perplexed by the idea that Kishan has sent a letter from his business trip only to receive it himself in his own house and offended when the ghost (who appears as Kishan) does not offer him a drink of water. Lachchi's bliss goes on until four years later, when she is pregnant and the real Kishan returns to see if the rumours about his wife's pregnancy are true. He returns to find the ghost in his (Kishan's) own form. Kishan's family is unable to determine which of the doppelgangers is the real Kishan (the ghost refusing to confess). They decide to visit the king so that he can arbitrate.
On the way to the king they meet an old shepherd Gadariya (Amitabh Bachchan) who helps them out. He asks the real son of Bhanwarlal to pick up hot coals, asks the real husband to gather the sheep, and asks Lachchi's real paramour to enter a water-bottle. The real Kishan is found out and everyone returns home. Lachchi is devastated over the loss of the ghost. In the very end it is revealed that the ghost has escaped the bottle and taken control of Kishan's body to live with her. By now Lachchi has given birth to a daughter, Looni Ma, by whom the ghost exposes his identity to Lachchi. The puppets close the story, remarking that the plot is "an old story".
Sea of Love
Tags: mystery, neo noir, murder, haunting

Plot synopsis:
New York City homicide detective Frank Keller is a burned-out alcoholic. His wife left him and married one of his colleagues, and he is depressed about reaching his 20th year on the police force. He is assigned to investigate the murder of a man in Manhattan, shot dead while face down in his bed, naked, listening to an old 45rpm recording of "Sea of Love." Keller has three clues — a lipstick-smeared cigarette, a want-ad that the dead man placed in a newspaper, and fingerprints of the perpetrator.
A second man dies in the same manner in Queens. Detective Sherman Touhey from the local precinct suggests that he and Frank collaborate. Both victims had placed rhyming ads in the lonely hearts column of the newspaper, seeking dates. The detectives track down Raymond Brown, the only other man with a rhyming ad. He's a married man who admits placing the ad but swears that he threw away all the letters and never saw anyone. Frank gets an idea to place a rhyming ad in the paper, meet women who respond in a restaurant and take the prints from their drinking glasses. Frank's precinct chief is skeptical, but changes his mind when Brown turns up dead in the same manner as the other two murder victims.
Frank has dinner with several women, while Sherman — posing as a waiter — puts their glasses into evidence bags. One woman, divorcee Helen Cruger, shows no interest in Frank and leaves without taking a drink, so Frank is unable to get her fingerprints. Frank bumps into her again at a market, but this time she is more friendly. Helen manages a chic upscale shoe store. Frank does not reveal his true occupation.
Frank takes her to his place, against his better judgment and a warning from Sherman not to do so. They start getting passionate, but Frank panics after finding a gun in her purse and treats her roughly. It turns out to be a starting pistol. Frank apologizes, and they have sex.
Frank and Helen begin a romance. He has a chance to obtain Helen's fingerprints on a glass but decides to wipe the glass clean. Their relationship becomes strained when she discovers that he is a cop. One night when he is drunk, he nearly gives away the fact that Helen was involved in a sting. He starts to confess his feelings for her, but then discovers that she responded to each of the victims' ads. When he confronts her, Helen refuses to admit to anything, so he throws her out.
Moments later, the real killer bursts into the apartment: Helen's ex-husband Terry, who has been stalking Helen and murdering the men she dates. At gunpoint, he makes Frank lie on his bed and show how he made love to Helen, just as he had done to his other victims before murdering them. Frank manages to overpower Terry and tries to call the police, but Terry lunges at him and, in the ensuing struggle, Frank throws Terry through the bedroom window to his death.
Several weeks later, a newly sober Frank reunites with Helen. She forgives him, and they resume their relationship.