Terrifying Tales (1989)
Genre : Mystery, Horror, Science Fiction, Drama
Runtime : 1H 13M
Director : Paul Bunnell, Armand Garabidian, Ephraim Schwartz
Synopsis
Terrifying Tales contains three independently-produced shorts running about 20 minutes apiece. Only one of the three; Paul Bunnell's "Final Destination: Unknown" (copyrighted 1989), is actually horror. The other two; Armand Garabidian's "Ten Seconds to Countdown" (copyrighted 1986) and Ephraim Schwartz's "Creatures of Habit" (also 1986), are, respectively, science fiction and drama with only slight mystery components. The three used here are connected only in that they were shorts made by UCLA graduate students. Sadly, none of them is very good. The opening title screens and closing credits have been left intact for each.
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
A shy woman, endowed with the speed, reflexes, and senses of a cat, walks a thin line between criminal and hero, even as a detective doggedly pursues her, fascinated by both of her personas
The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them suffers a family tragedy.
America is on the search for the murderer Eddie Kim. Sean Jones must fly to L.A. to testify in a hearing against Kim. Accompanied by FBI agent Neville Flynn, the flight receives some unexpected visitors.
A wealthy entrepreneur secretly creates a theme park featuring living dinosaurs drawn from prehistoric DNA. Before opening day, he invites a team of experts and his two eager grandchildren to experience the park and help calm anxious investors. However, the park is anything but amusing as the security systems go off-line and the dinosaurs escape.
As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
A samurai answers a village's request for protection after he falls on hard times. The town needs protection from bandits, so the samurai gathers six others to help him teach the people how to defend themselves, and the villagers provide the soldiers with food.
During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.
Andy moves to New York to work in the fashion industry. Her boss is extremely demanding, cruel and won't let her succeed if she doesn't fit into the high class elegant look of their magazine.
Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...
When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
When an armed, masked gang enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
A mother and daughter move to a small French town where they open a chocolate shop. The town, religious and morally strict, is against them, as they represent free-thinking and indulgence. When a group of Boat Gypsies float down the river, the prejudice of the Mayor leads to a crisis.
When scientists discover something in the Arctic that appears to be a buried Pyramid, they send a research team out to investigate. Little do they know that they are about to step into a hunting ground where Aliens are grown as sport for the Predator race.
A violent police detective investigates a brutal murder that might involve a manipulative and seductive novelist.
Batman and Robin deal with relationship issues while preventing Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy from attacking Gotham City.
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
