SnoopyStyle Charlene Andrews (Monica Carrico) is a masseuse among other things. She falls for seventeen year old Danny Hicks (Eric Stoltz). He's convicted of killing his father and sentence to death. She becomes his pen pal as he reminds her of a boy she used to know. He manages to escape and shows up at her doorstep. She has been harassed by corrupt cop Tom Bond (Richard Bradford). There's a struggle when he shows up and Bond is killed. Hicks is heading for family in Arizona and the couple is followed by a vengeful investigator.There are some weak stuff here. The writing is poor and there is an overall low quality about almost everything. The escape from the police is weak. Charlene and Tom Bond should be scary but it gets too silly. The saving graces are the two leads, Monica Carrico and Eric Stoltz. Stoltz would go on to bigger better things. Carrico is a relative unknown but she has real charisma. Writer/director Mark Griffiths never rose too high for a reason. This is more like a TV-movie thriller.

Woodyanders Naïve young teen Danny Hicks (a fine and engaging performance by Eric Stoltz in his first starring role) gets sent to prison for killing his father. However, Danny manages to escape from police custody and hooks up with the brash and spunky Charlene Andrews (a winningly sexy and vivacious performance by the beautiful Monica Carrico), a smitten prostitute who was Danny's pen pal while he was in jail. The pair go on the lam with fearsome and vengeful cop Officer Trent (expertly played to the ruthless hilt by Stuart Margolin) in dogged pursuit. Writer/director Mark Griffiths relates the absorbing story at a steady pace, stages the action scenes with skill and flair, wrings a good deal of touching pathos from the doomed central romance, grounds the narrative in a plausibly sordid everyday world, and puts a nifty spin on the couple on the run premise by presenting the woman as older and more worldly while the younger male is a virginal innocent. Moreover, Griffiths warrants extra praise not only for his vivid evocation of the obscure seedy areas of American culture (seamy massage parlors, dingy roadside motels, remote watering holes, and so on), but also for not wrapping everything up all nice and pretty at the startling and realistic downbeat conclusion. The sound acting by the able cast keeps the picture on track: Stoltz and Carrico display a strong and appealing chemistry in the leads, with ace support from Richard Bradford as slimy TV news broadcaster Tom Bond, Virgil Frye as sleazy pimp Ross, Sorrells Pickard as a wily ex-con, Juliette Cummins as Danny's little sister, and Ben Hammer as Danny's abusive pedophile father. The lively score by Al Capps does the rousing trick. Tom Richmond's crisp cinematography provides an impressive polished look. A real sleeper.

lazarillo This is a good example of the kind of movies I like to watch. It's not a great classic that everyone (or, for that matter, really anyone) has heard of, but neither is it a campy "so-bad-its-good" type thing that people who like to watch "bad" movies supposedly seek out (most of these kind of would-be "cult" movies actually set out to be campy and still manage to fail miserably). The plot of this movie, treated seriously more or less, involves an innocent teenager (Eric Stoltz)sentenced to prison after killing his father in an incident involving his young sister (Juliette Cummins). He attracts the attention of a female admirer/stalker (Monica Caraccio), a thirty-year-old prostitute and kept woman, and after he escapes from prison, they meet up and go on the lam together.This actually sounds a lot like the notorious Helen Slater/Christian Slater anti-classic "The Legend of Billy Jean" released around the same time. But while that was an especially insipid 80's teen movie this is definitely NOT for teens, despite the presence of clean-cut future teen heart-throb Eric Stoltz in an early pre-"Mask" role. Stoltz's character may be innocent of killing his father technically, but he manages to kill a lot of other people including a cop and the Caraccio character's sugar daddy. Stoltz is not bad and certainly better than he was in a lot of his 80's movies (like "Mask"). Carracio's character meanwhile is first introduced masturbating in a bathtub, and her sexually available character makes for interesting relationship with Stoltz's who, despite his murderous proclivities, is virginal and innocent in many ways. I've never seen Carracio before or after this movie, but she looks kind of like Jenny Wright (one my favorite obscure 80's actresses) and she gives a pretty decent performance. (She also has some nude scenes and there are lots of gratuitous shots of her fine, fine butt).Believe it or not though, I actually watched this movie for Juliette Cummins, one my favorite 80's "scream queens". Cummins was far less prolific than fellow "scream queens" like Linnaea Quigley or Brinke Stevens and usually appeared only in movies with a number after them (i.e. "Friday the 13th Part V", "Slumber Party Massacre II", "Psycho III"). She was only in her teens when she made this movie though (and is very unconvincingly playing a twelve year old). She has a very small, but important part as the only witness to the murder of Stoltz's father. I don't know that I'm really seek this movie out,but it is kind of interesting if you get a chance to see it.

Buck Aroo Saw this on TV late one night during the '80s (yep, it's one of those) recorded it, and then stupidly erased it. Never seen it on the box since, unfortunately. It's the type of film that you see, and cannot possibly guess the ending. The plot summary explains the story concisely, so I won't add to it.Catch it somewhere sometime.