LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AX

LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AXE (2014 Lifetime telefilm). Director: Nick Gomez.

Lizzie Borden (Christina Ricci) is arrested and put on trial when her father, Andrew (Stephen McHattie of XIII) and stepmother Abby (Sara Botsford of Murder By Phone), are axed to death about an hour apart in their own home. Lizzie's sister Emma (Clea DuVall) sticks up for her sister but has nagging doubts, and the whole town turns against them. This look at the famous, unsolved murders offers nothing new, has stick-thin characters, provides little motivation, and is awash in a rock score that is not only inappropriate but gives the whole project a mindless veneer. The acting is okay enough, although to be fair to Ricci she really isn't given much of a character to play. Lizzie's alleged lover, actress Nance O'Neil [Transgression], is briefly portrayed by Andria Wilson, but there is little about Lizzie's possible lesbianism or how it may have influenced prosecutors. The movie gets a lot wrong about the case -- it's as if the writer just threw together a script based on conjecture and other movies and didn't do any research.

Verdict: Not much to this by-the-numbers look at an infamous murder case. **.

DEADLY EYES aka THE RATS

The "rats" go on the rampage

DEADLY EYES (aka The Rats/1982). Director: Robert Clouse.

This entertaining horror flick is very loosely based on British writer James Herbert's novel "The Rats," with the action being transplanted to Toronto from England. Deep in the sewers and subway lines rats the size of dogs [and played by dogs as well as puppet heads for close-ups] are breeding after ingesting some chemical or other, and getting hungrier by the minute. The main characters are teacher Paul Harris (Sam Groom), and his latest lady friend, a health inspector named Kelly Leonard (Sara Botsford). One of Kelly's employees (Scatman Crothers) tells her he's seen a really big rat, and later becomes one of their victims, along with teens, elderly people, and one unfortunate baby who's dragged out of her highchair. A stupid sub-plot has to do with a female student who develops a crush on Harris; she and her friends are boring, but most of the movie has to do with the busy rats, who stage attacks in bowling alleys, a movie theater, and finally on a train load of politicos and others accompanying the obnoxious mayor on the first ride on a new subway expansion line. While the movie is low-budget and even schlocky at times, it does work up some suspense, the actors are good, the "dogs" are effective stand-ins for big rats, and the sounds the beasties make are a little unnerving. Clouse also directed "The Pack," about killer dogs, five years earlier, and Botsford also appeared in Murder By Phone. Fans of the Herbert novel will undoubtedly be disappointed, but this is hardly as terrible as some have suggested.

Verdict: Actually pretty creepy if you're in the right mood. ***.

MURDER BY PHONE

MURDER BY PHONE (1982). Director: Michael Anderson. 

When the daughter of friends is found dead in the subway under highly mysterious circumstances, Nat Bridger (Richard Chamberlain in a great beard) investigates and discovers that the pay phone the girl was talking on was damaged by some kind of fiery or electrical disturbance. Before long various people taking phone calls are having their brains fried by weird sounds and impulses coming from their phones, impulses so strong that one poor man is sent hurtling out of his chair and through the window of a skyscraper! Is the phone company trying to cover up that some maniac is using new technology to send lethal electrical waves across phone lines? What do you think? Bridger joins forces with an artist (Sara Botsford) who tries to help him get inside information. This is a fairly effective thriller with a novel idea, even if the killer's exact motives are never quite clarified. John Houseman appears as another friend of Bridger's who has a connection to the phone company. The eerie, jangling score was done by John Barry of Out of Africa and James Bond fame; an unusual assignment for him that hardly makes use of his romantic sensibility. Busy actress Botsford also appeared in Deadly Eyes, Tremors 4 and the remake of The Fog. 

Verdict: It may not keep you off the phone but it should hold your attention. **1/2.