NOMADS (1986)

Late one night, Los Angeles emergency room doctor Lesley-Anne Down is looking at a new patient (Pierce Brosnan) who appears to be stark raving mad.  He's strapped to a gurney, but then in some kind of death burst he launches up and bites her on the ear while saying "They are not there; they are Innuat."  Then he falls over as dead as a doornail. Somehow the ear bite transferred all of his recent memories from his noddle into her noodle and now she's going around in a dream state reliving his interactions with a group of evil spirits that dress up in human form.

That's a cool idea, unfortunately, instead of going for a straightforward horror movie the filmmakers went with the dreamy urban thriller route.  It worked for about 30 minutes then got too discombobulated for my liking.  Also, the evil spirits weren't scary and they were never fully explained.  Are they angry about something or are they just mischievous?  Either way they didn't seem to even be interested in Brosnan until he started pestering them!!!  How can I have any sympathy for a character that purposely puts himself in harms way, either on purpose or by his own stupidity?

Strong start, nice photography, interesting story idea, good acting, highly disappointing second half with a laughable ending, non-threatening punks, low gas prices, Pierce Brosnan's butt cheeks, 80's guitar rock score.  Not really worth watching, especially if you are looking for a horror movie.

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990)

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."

I've never read a Tom Clancy novel (although I've spent thousands of hours playing Tom Clancy video games), but if the novel "The Hunt for Red October" is better than the movie then I might have to because this movie was a blast!

Opening scene, a highly respected Russian submarine commander (Sean Connery) is suppose to take the Soviet Navy's new revolutionary stealth nuclear submarine out on a test run, but instead he's making a break for the U.S.  Has he gone mad?  Is he gonna start WWIII?  Is he trying to defect?  Maybe he's lost or there's a wookalar loose on board the sub.  Nobody knows!  So, now not only is the entire Soviet Navy after him, including submarine captain Stellan Skarsgard, but also the entire American military including CIA analyst Alec Baldwin.  It's all very exciting.  Explosions, sonar, helicopters, jets, torpedoes, unobtrusive computer effects, fast pace that makes the 134-minute runtime absolutely fly by, strong cast, exciting story.

If you're into military thrillers, then you should check it out.  Recommended.

Part 2 - Patriot Games (1992)
Part 3 - Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Reboot 1 - The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Reboot 2 - Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)