Angel of Death (1990)

An escaped convict (Harrison) becomes obsessed with an artist (Seymour) and her 6 year old son.

Director:

Bill Norton (as Bill L. Norton)

Writers:

Paul Boorstin, Sharon Boorstin

Stars:

Jane Seymour, Gregory Harrison, Brian Bonsall

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jane Seymour	...	Laura Hendricks
Gregory Harrison	...	Gary Nicholson
Brian Bonsall	...	Josh Hendricks
Peggy Rea	...	Marci
Ray Walston	...	Prison Librarian
Terence Knox	...	Vince Slade
Chris Mulkey	...	Matt Hendricks
Susan Hess	...	Diana Gibson
John de Lancie	...	Professor Jeffrey Howell
Grand L. Bush	...	Detective Wilcox
Dana Gladstone	...	Mr. Althrop
Sonny Carl Davis	...	Detective Rivera
Frank Birney	...	Warden
Tommy Hinkley	...	Rak Slade
Bernard Kates	...	Old Man Dooley

Storyline

An escaped convict (Harrison) becomes obsessed with an artist (Seymour) and her 6 year old son.

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Plot Keywords:

mother son relationship | prison riot | prison escape | dog | prison library | 

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Taglines:

He would protect her from the world. But who would protect her from him?

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Genres:

Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-14

Did You Know?

Quotes

[Matt Hendricks went back to the law office. He hear the noise in his office]
Matt Hendricks: Laura, is that you?
[He checked in his office and see who is the man sitting]
Matt Hendricks: Laura?
[That's no Laura. It's the nutcase]
Matt Hendricks: Who are you?
Gary Nicholson: I'm a friend of Laura's.
Matt Hendricks: How'd you get in here? Where's Laura?
Gary Nicholson: You don't need to worry about Laura anymore, man. I'm taking care of her now. I'm taking care of Josh.
Matt Hendricks: Look, I don't who you are or what you want. But I want you out of here.
[...]

User Reviews

Intimate Terror

Laura Hendricks (Jane Seymour) is an illustrator of children's books and college art teacher living in Lennox, California with her son Josh (Brian Bonsall) and separated from her husband Matt (Chris Mulkey). Attica New York prison inmate Garry Nicholson (Gregory Harrison) who is serving life for the murder of his wife and son, learns to read and becomes obsessed with Laura's book of Rumpelstiltskin, escapes during a riot where he kills a guard, Rak (Tommy Hinkley) and takes his clothes. Garry makes his way to Lennox and Laura, clearing obstacles like her neighbours hostile dobermann, her mechanic, a rival art teacher up for the same professorship Diana Gibson (Susan Hess), Vince (Terence Knox) who is Rak's brother and who has tracked him from Attica, Matt, and eventually kidnapping Josh.

Seymour's long hair is wavy here and she wears bohemian clothes suitable for an art teacher. Laura is not a role of any depth, and her best scene is probably when she bickers with Diana, who gets the professorship because of the wealth of her father. She isn't even allowed to react to a presumably naked Harrison when he models for her class, their romantic dinner scene seems more interested in displaying candles than showing any flesh, and her girlfriend talk with Marci (Peggy Rea) where Laura wonders how she could have been attracted to the unstable Garry, cuts away from Seymour's face.

The teleplay by Paul and Sharon Boorstin uses the Rumplestiltskin fairy tale, where Garry describes `helping' Laura in his own serial killing way as `turning straw into gold', and his rationale for kidnapping Josh is because he is her `first born' and she is being punished for not valuing what he has done. This is all fine though when Laura guesses Garry's name, as in the tale, it doesn't have any impact, though the conclusion's use of a wheat cutter is a nice touch. An expectation that Garry will be burned to death, the way he had burned his wife and child (though he claims the child's presence was an unintentional) isn't met, though fire in the Attica riot are what helps to free him. Garry's state of mind is interesting in the way he drops the gun after he shoots one person and walks away, and in the way he doesn't clean a bloodied carpet stain in his room, with Harrison's playing making his weakness at `madness' effective in a child-like way.

Director Bill L Norton uses zooms on Seymour when she sees Josh falls down a well in a nightmare and nearly fall in real time, Willie Nelson singing Someone To Watch Over Me in the romantic dinner, but titled camera towards the end for Garry's lunacy and Laura's anguish.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 October 1990 (USA)

Also Known As:

El ángel de la muerte

Company Credits

Production Co:

Once Upon a Time Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

86 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1