Having put down his sword and given up the will to fight, the masterless samurai Iemon lives in solitude while being haunted by his violent enigmatic past...
The Count sets out to make a private room for him and his Countess, built in such a way no one can see, hear, and most importantly, disturb them. But unbeknownst to the Count, his wife has set her eyes on the court minstrel. Based on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado” and Honoré de Balzac's “La Grande Breteche”.
Rogue Trader tells the true story of Nick Leeson, an employee of Barings Bank who--after a successful trading run--ends up accumulating $1.4 billion in losses hidden in account #88888.
In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.
American computer whiz Luke Williams meets elderly Lavinia Fullerton on a London-bound train. She reveals she's discovered the identity of a serial killer in her village and is going to report it to Scotland Yard. When she is murdered after disembarking the train, Williams vows to pursue the case himself.
After an unusual meteor shower leaves most of the human population blind, a merchant navy officer must find a way to conquer tall, aggressive plants which are feeding on people and animals.
A young boy tries to cope with rural life circa 1950s and his fantasies become a way to interpret events. After his father tells him stories of vampires, he becomes convinced that the widow up the road is a vampire, and tries to find ways of discouraging his brother from seeing her.
In the African American neighborhood of Sag Harbor, Charles Blakey is out of work, out of luck and on the verge of foreclosure on his ancestral home. A knock on the door from mysterious businessman Anniston Bennet brings a bizarre and lucrative proposition; rent his dusty stand-up basement out for the summer and receive enough money to clear his debts for good. Once Charles accepts, he finds himself led down a terrifying path that confronts his family’s ghosts and locks the men in a terrifying puzzle, at the heart of it race, the source of their traumas and the root of all evil.
In a dystopian, polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.
Scudder is a detective with the Sheriff's Department who is forced to shoot a violent suspect during a narcotics raid. The ensuing psychological aftermath of this shooting worsens his drinking problem and this alcoholism causes him to lose his job, as well as his marriage.
After an older lady hangs herself in a church, a new psychiatrist discovers she was obsessed with the disappearance of his eight-year-old son, who vanished three years earlier. Meanwhile, three city dwellers are restoring a house when they realize it is haunted.
Forensic psychologist and detective Alex Cross travels to North Carolina and teams with escaped kidnap victim Kate McTiernan to hunt down "Casanova," a serial killer who abducts strong-willed women and forces them to submit to his demands. The trail leads to Los Angeles, where the duo discovers that the psychopath may not be working alone.
The mutilated body of a six year old girl is found in a water hole. The girl is identified as the missing daughter of Claudia. However, only two peices of evidence could be used to identify her; a bracelet with her name on it near the crime scene, and the fact that her right leg was three inches longer than her left. All other methods of identification were removed from her body. Five years later Claudia, now addicted to tranquilizers, receives a phone call from someone claiming to be her daughter, asking for her mother to come find her before 'they' kill her. Other mysterious clues show up, further indicating that Claudia's daughter is indeed still alive, and very much in danger. Claudia, a run-down ex-cop, and a parapsychology reporter put together the clues to discover Angela's whereabouts
One day in 1984, Todd Bowden, a brilliant high school boy fascinated by the history of Nazism, stumbles across an old man whose appearance resembles that of Kurt Dussander, a wanted Nazi war criminal. A month later, Todd decides to knock on his door.
In a far-future time ruled by the supernatural, a young girl requests the help of a vampire hunter to kill the vampire who has bitten her and thus prevent her from becoming a vampire herself.
Lincoln Rhyme was the department's top homicide detective and leading expert in criminal forensics until an injury left him paralyzed, depressed, and incapable of working. But when a gruesome murder in Manhattan leaves detectives baffled, they call on Rhyme to help solve the mystery. Amelia Donaghy, a rookie cop whose quick thinking preserved a gruesome murder scene, is enlisted by Rhyme to be his on-the-scene forensics expert. With Amelia reluctantly acting as Rhyme's able-bodied go-between, the pair piece together cryptic clues the killer leaves behind at the scene of the crime, hoping to catch the grisly serial killer.
Jaded ex-CIA operative John Creasy reluctantly accepts a job as the bodyguard for a 10-year-old girl in Mexico City. They clash at first, but eventually bond, and when she's kidnapped he's consumed by fury and will stop at nothing to save her life.
The true and infamous story of Australia's notorious criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read and his years of crime, interest in violence, drugs and prostitutes.
Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.
Due to an experimental vaccine, Dr. Robert Neville is the only human survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. Besides him, only a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people remain - sensitive to light, and homicidally psychotic.
After a comet wipes out most of life on Earth, two Valley Girls find themselves fighting against cannibal zombies and a sinister group of scientists.
Working in an orphanage, Alia meets teen Nadia, who says she hears a strange voice in the walls. When they try to find the source, things go very wrong.
Three short stories linked by a stray cat that roams from one tale to the next, in this creepy triptych that begins as Dick tries to quit smoking by any means necessary. Next, we meet Johnny, an adulterous man who's forced by his lover's husband onto a building's hazardous ledge. Finally, Amanda is threatened by an evil gnome who throws suspicion on the family cat.
For more than a decade, parents Andy and Vicky have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction. Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, which is triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family's location, a mysterious operative is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans.
Residents of a friendly Pennsylvania town foil three brothers' plan to rob a bank on Christmas Eve.
Antonio, a former variety actor, keeps his daughter in an excellent boarding school by organizing small scams with his friend and colleague Felice. Commissioner Malvasia good-naturedly persecuted him. When their respective unsuspecting children fall in love, the two fathers make peace.
A couple are given a camera and a set of instructions which they must follow or else someone will die.
A young boy living in a remote village in the Andes Mountains dreams of becoming shaman.
A traveling couple end up in an abandoned Nebraska town inhabited by a cult of murderous children who worship a demon that lives in the local cornfields.
After an older lady hangs herself in a church, a new psychiatrist discovers she was obsessed with the disappearance of his eight-year-old son, who vanished three years earlier. Meanwhile, three city dwellers are restoring a house when they realize it is haunted.
Some say that to be the leader of a country is one of the loneliest jobs in the world. But being the child of a world leader can be doubly so. Constantly surrounded by security officers, restricted in movements and having almost every waking moment carefully monitored makes normalcy an impossibility. No one knows this better than young Luke Davenport, the son of U.S. President Davenport. He vents his loneliness, frustration and feelings of isolation from family and friends by being a brat to his private Secret Service agent. When the agent snaps from the strain in front of the First Lady, a new agent is assigned to Luke. He turns out to be the enormous Sam Simms, a bit of a rogue who managed to rise through the ranks by sheer determination rather than strict adherence to Secret-Service protocol. At first, Luke tries all his old tricks upon Sam. But instead of getting angry, Sam seems to actually understand.
When a devious plot separates CIA agent Peter Sandza from his son, Robin, the distraught father manages to see through the ruse. Taken because of his psychic abilities, Robin is being held by Ben Childress, who is studying people with supernatural powers in hopes of developing their talents as weapons. Soon Peter pairs up with Gillian, a teen who has telekinesis, to find and rescue Robin.
Afflicted with a terminal illness John Bernard Books, the last of the legendary gunfighters, quietly returns to Carson City for medical attention from his old friend Dr. Hostetler. Aware that his days are numbered, the troubled man seeks solace and peace in a boarding house run by a widow and her son. However, it is not Books' fate to die in peace, as he becomes embroiled in one last valiant battle.
After moving to Pasadena, Texas, country boy Bud Davis starts hanging around a bar called Gilley's, where he falls in love with Sissy, a cowgirl who believes the sexes are equal. They eventually marry, but their relationship is turbulent due to Bud's traditional view of gender roles. Jealousy over his rival leads to their separation, but Bud attempts to win Sissy back by triumphing at Gilley's mechanical bull-riding competition.
When a comet passes close to the earth, machines all over the world come alive and go on homicidal rampages. A group of people at a desolate truck stop are held hostage by a gang of homicidal 18-wheelers. The frightened people set out to defeat the killer machines ... or be killed by them.
In a small English village everyone suddenly falls unconscious. When they awake every woman of child bearing age is pregnant. The resulting children have the same strange blond hair, eyes and a strong connection to each other.
A down-on-his-luck PI is hired by his old flame to investigate a murder. But while the case at first appears routine, it slowly reveals itself to be a complex interwoven web of crimes, suspects and dead bodies.
Shane O'Shea, a Jersey boy with big dreams, crosses the river in hopes of finding another, more exciting life at Studio 54. When Steve Rubell, the mastermind behind the infamous disco plucks Shane from the sea of faces clamoring to get inside his club, Shane not only gets his foot in the door, but lands a coveted job behind the bar - and a front-row ticket to the most legendary party on the planet.
Bernie Laplante is having a rough time. He's divorced, his ex-wife hates him and has custody of their son, the cops are setting a trap for him, then to top it all, he loses a shoe whilst rescuing passengers of a crashed jet. Being a thief who is down on his luck, Bernie takes advantage of the crash, but then someone else claims credit for the rescue.