There won't be a specific answer to this question, but I would like to hear thoughts/comments. Why is it that the Twilight series has inspired so many vampire-themed movies, shows, and books (True Blood, Moonlight, The Vampire Diaries, etc.)? The Harry Potter series is also hugely popular, but hasn't led to as many "copycats".
General questions about movies, TV and more
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Trying to remember a movie, hope you can help. I only ever saw the movie on TV, I believe in the 80s, it was usually showing on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Set in a huge mansion with very ornate decor (lots of wood, chandeliers and thick carpeting). Guests who are very peculiar have been invited for an overnight dinner. I don't think they know who invited them. They arrive two by two, couples or maybe even a mother/daughter, and they settle into their individual rooms. House may be haunted but it's not scary at all, more of a dark comedy. It's not until dinner they see who the host is. The characters are very over the top, odd and exaggerated. They might even be thinking someone is going to murder them, or someone was murdered and they don't know who it was (this is only a vague recollection, might not be right). I believe the entire movie takes place over just one evening. I can't think of anything else that sticks out and I can't remember anyone who's in it. I think it was really long but that may just be my memory of it. Don't know if any of this can help name the movie.
Can you help with the name of this movie? I think a woman is being conned by someone who has given her a photo of his supposed family and while she is browsing in a store she sees lots of photo frames and the default photo is the same as the one she has been given.
Answer: Sounds like the episode in Friends where Phoebe is talking with her Grandmother about her real father.
What is the name of the 70/80's TV miniseries that was about a man making incredible wealth in African diamonds and later trying to buy the US presidency for his son? I recall some dialog "I'll pay 50 million, 100 million, 150 million or any multiple thereof ."
Chosen answer: Sounds like the 1976 TV mini-series, The Captains and the Kings. Set in late 19th-century America, it stars Richard Jordan as a penniless Irish immigrant who rises into a rich and powerful business mogul. The series covers several generations in his family.
I'm trying to remember the name of a movie, but all I can remember is that it's about some type of robot or android boy. It takes place in the future. I think it came out between 1999 or 2001.
Answer: You might be thinking of Artificial Intelligence (2001) which starred Haley Joel Osment.
I don't know if it is a movie or a show but there is this gargoyle thing and for some reason he is apologizing to this guy and then munches on him. It was live action. Sorry for not having a lot of details.
Chosen answer: Might be "Tales From the Darkside", 1990. It's actually tree short stories in one movie, the last one being "Lover's Vow", which did have a gargoyle. This description sounds like the last scene of that tale, and I've never seen another movie with a gargoyle that talked.
Can anyone identify a film which ends with a woman on the porch of a Caribbean style house singing a reggae song but as far as I can remember neither the song nor the woman were directly relevant to the story of the film. Not much to go on I know.
Answer: If I remember correctly, that is Weekend at Bernie's 2.
I am trying to find the name of a movie. I know a bit of the plot: it is set in some fantasy world and there is this teenage girl talking to this teenage boy and they are watching these unicorns. The girl ends up petting the unicorns and she is then chased by goblins or something and winds up being captured by a devil dude.
Chosen answer: The film is "Legend", from 1985. The girl is Mia Sara, the boy Tom Cruise, the devil dude Tim Curry. All of whom probably want to forget they were in it...
I'm trying to find the NAME of an old (ABC?) TV movie, circa 1970's, likely mid 1970's. All I remember is the (basic) plot AND the final shot. PLOT: the main character (Andrew Prine?) has been in accident (?), or was hurt in the military and he has a plate in his head or some sort of surgery was done to his brain. Something is "odd" about the new town he moves into and the main character thinks the Sheriff / Police Chief is controlling the people and might even be doing doing something illegal. Also, the main character falls in love with a mysterious woman in the small town, and through some series of events he finds out that the people of the town are being controlled by outer space travelers who are using the towns people to rebuild their space ship, at night, while they are hypnotized while asleep. The Sheriff and his new love ARE the head aliens. They are using the towns peoples 'bodies' to do the repairs because they don't have physical bodies, they are just beings made of 'energy'. The main character can't be 'hypnotized' because of the plate / surgery to his head. Near the end of the movie he actually sees the people wandering out toward a field where the busted space ship is being repaired. LAST SHOT: the final shot is the main character's body, lying in a field, in broad daylight. He's gone off into outer space (or just his 'life energy' has gone')with the woman with whom he fell in love. Roll Credits. 11:00 o'clock news. I started thinking about this because there was an episode of "Eureka" where the town's people worked on a 'project' at night, while they were hypnotized. Same plot, different out come. Thanks.
Chosen answer: This sounds like the 1970 made-for-TV movie titled, Night Slaves, starring Andrew Prine, James Franciscus, and Lee Grant. Leslie Nielsen played the sheriff of a small western town where some strange force has turned the residents into zombies.
I saw a scary movie many years ago. It could have been made in the late 1930's or 1940's. About a man that was given a shot in his neck and eventually grew another head. All I remember is that the first sign of the head was a eye on the victims shoulder. Would like to know the name of the film.
Answer: The film is called The Manster: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055139/.
What is the name of the movie musical with the man eating plant in Greenwich Village with Steve Martin as the dentist?
Answer: Little Shop of Horrors, with Rick Moranis.
I'm looking for the name of a film i saw in the 90's. It's about a man who pays a couple a lot of money to sleep with the woman. I remember the couple having money all over their bed once they were paid. Any idea what this movie is?
Around 1995 I saw a movie on TV that I simply cannot find anything on. I do not know the title, the actors, character names, or anything else but a few specific scenes and a general view of the plot. The movie is about a boy, who I want to say is named Toby, and I believe he is somehow mentally disabled. His elder parents, or guardians, care for him. The character has this ability to bring objects to reality from pictures using his mind. He consistently puts his hands in front of him and says, "bring," and the object appears. His guardians are on constant watch of what he sees and is able to "bring." In one particular scene, he somehow gets a hold of a book/picture of a human heart, which he brings to life, and is sitting on the floor playing with it, tossing it back and forth in his hands. When his mother/woman discovers him, in shock or by some connection to the heart in his hands, the mother dies. At the end of the movie, the father 'forces' Toby to bring fire through a picture and sets the house ablaze with them inside. Unfortunately this is all I can remember and I am unsure of how accurate I am, but if this rings a bell, please help.
Chosen answer: This is an episode from the second season of the new Twilight Zone, called "The Toys of Caliban."
I saw a docu-drama recently about Vlad the Impaler, but I've not idea what it was called or what channel it was. It was about three imprisoned priests who were about to face Vlad and were comparing stories about what he did to people. It was very gruesome and showed people being impaled. Can anyone help me out here?
Answer: Found it! Goto the History Channel for the info on that program: http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/shows/true-horror/episode-guide.html.
Help me please to remember a title of this American (maybe Britain) criminal drama of the 90s about the murder of a girl. There are two students; one poor, but talented (I will call him Poor), other - rich, but dumb (I will call him Rich). Rich asks Poor to write an essay for him. Poor complies Rich's request and becomes Rich's family friend. Some time later, on the one of the parties, Rich rapes and accidentally murders a girl. When he realizes what he had done, he runs in the panic to the Poor and asks him to help to hide a body. I remember scene: Rich wipes blood from baseball bat by his clothes (he killed her by this bat). Soon after, Rich's dad comes to help and finally covers Rich's tracks. After this accident Poor, striking by conscience, makes a decision to end his friendship with Rich. And some time later he tries to make Rich to appear before the court. But Rich's dad (half-paralyzed at that time) hires woman-lawyer for $1000000 to protect his son. And she wins a case. Rich releases from a penalty. (No happy end) Some details, that I remember: Rich had a brother-invalid. In one scene Poor comes to murdered girl's mother and gives back to her some object (possibly he knew this girl and her mother before). Poor tried to find material evidence of Rich's crime: baseball bat. He knew the place where it was thrown away. He found this bat, but only after Rich was acquitted in court. And this evidence became useless, because Rich couldn't be judged twice for the same crime. At the end of the movie someone tries to wake up a Rich's father to tell him a good news about winning the case. Father, after awakening, suddenly yells terribly, drools and dies. Actor, who played a father, looks similar to Brian Dennehy: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001133/ But I didn't find such description in his filmography.
Chosen answer: It's A Season in Purgatory starring Craig Sheffer and Patrick Dempsey, based on the book by Dominic Dunne (which itself was loosely based on the real-life murder of Martha Moxley). Brian Dennehy did indeed play Sheffer's father.
I seem to remember a TV show, probably an episode from an Australian children's series aired in the UK sometime in the mid 1990s, but I would be grateful if anybody could shed any light on this, or at the very least identify which TV show it came from. In the episode in question there is a boy who, for whatever reason, is chained to a supermarket trolley that obviously follows him around. Said boy and trolley somehow end up in the sea and another kid's mother swims out with some cutters to cut the chained boy from "his" trolley before he drowns.
Chosen answer: It may be part of the Paul Jennings Weird Storie episodes, also famous for the Aussie Series Around the Twist.
I was wondering if anyone knows the title to a TV series that was on in either the 1990's or early 2000's. It only lasted a few episodes. It was about a group of teenagers who suddenly have the power to see and talk to ghosts. I think the series was on the WB network.
I am trying to find the name of this movie. It was made around the late 70's to mid 80's and is a horror movie about a giant swarm of bees. The only thing I remember from it was the final scene took place inside the Louisiana Superdome, and the bees were swarmed around a car sitting in the middle of the football field. The main characters figured out that they had to freeze the bees to death, so the had to lower the air temperature to below 39 degrees which killed the bees. But the final scene reveals one bee was still alive, hinting that the swarm would rebuild. I have tried and tried to find the title of this movie and I can't. Please help.
Chosen answer: Based on what you've describe, this sounds like the 1976 TV movie, The Savage Bees. A swarm of South American killer bees escape from a foreign ship and invade New Orleans during Mardi Gras. It stars Ben Johnson and Michael Parks.
Sometime in the 90s, I heard a rumor about a much-anticipated movie being cancelled because a child choked on a toy/doll of a character from it. Does anyone know if this is true or what movie it was?
Answer: Partially true: 1995's "Toy Story" had a mini-Woody PVC figure sold in the Disney stores. The base of this figure separated from Woody's feet and a child DID choke on the star-shaped piece. I bought one just before they pulled it off the shelves and replaced it with a another Woody figure that had an attached base. The movie, however, was obviously never pulled from release.
I have a very vague memory of what I think is an episode from a British TV show. One of the main characters is transporting a criminal of some sort, via car, to somewhere else. The criminal (I think) is a nice man, I think he's a con-man, and he's friendly to the main character. After a while the criminal guy finds out the main character is having some kind of relationship or other social problem, and helps them out. I'm pretty sure this happens on a motorway service station. The episode ends with the criminal guy escaping but leaving behind a note saying he's sorry that he had to. I also remember something about the criminal guy conning someone out of the proper amount of change after buying something from a shop. I'm positive this is a British TV show, and I'm almost positive it was a comedy. All I know is that it's not "The Detectives".
Chosen answer: This sounds like an episode of "The Bill" from 1999 called "On the Road". DC Duncan Lennox and DC Liz Rawton travel to Salisbury to transport a conman back to London. From what I remember all the events you mention took place in the episode: Lennox having a problem, a scam involving an amount of change and at the end he leaves a note apologising for absconding.
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Answer: Most likely because, in most of the cases that you cite as copycat books, they were originally published prior to Twilight. The first Twilight book came out in 2005, but The Vampire Diaries first appeared on the shelves in 1991, while The Southern Vampire Mysteries (televised as the rather more succinct "True Blood") has been around since 2001. As such, when Twilight began to hit the heights of its popularity, both book series were already in existence to be swiftly adapted as TV shows, whilst being relatively immune from accusations of simply being copycats by virtue of pre-dating Twilight by some years. Likewise, while premiering after the first book was written, the TV series Moonlight predates the Twilight film series by a year or so and thus it's difficult to level too many accusations there either - supernatural TV shows existed long before Twilight, and Moonlight is better seen as a successor to those than as a cynical attempt to jump onto the Twilight bandwagon. With Harry Potter, the situation is somewhat different, in that relatively few similar literary series existed prior to the Potter series becoming highly popular. As such, any similar show that was produced would likely have to be based on material published after Potter, and thus would be widely seen as simply being a rip-off. As such, TV and film executives are probably more wary of getting involved in such ventures.
Tailkinker ★