Karen Black Filmography

Read You Like a Book

Actors: Tony Amendola, Barbara Crampton, Catalina Larranaga, Lorenzo Pisoni, Karen Black

Synopsis: A whistle-blowing doctor hides incriminating information in a magical book with the power to transform all who come onto contact with it, prompting unwanted attention from the heavies at a powerful pharmaceutical company and setting five unwitting strangers on a strange collision course. Bookstore Read More

The Bluetooth Virgin

Actors: Austin James Peck, Bryce Johnson, Karen Black, Roma Maffia

Hollywood Dreams

Actors: Tanna Frederick, Justin Kirk, Zack Norman, David Proval, Karen Black

Synopsis: When an aspiring young starlet from Iowa falls in love with a handsome and promising young actor, she finds her dreams of fame slowly fading in a poignant tale of show-business aspirations from director Henry Jaglom. Upon arriving in Los Angeles to seek her fortune on film and stage, an innocent Read More

One Long Night

Suffering Man's Charity

Actors: Alan Cumming, David Boreanaz, Anne Heche, Carrie Fisher

Synopsis: A failed composer takes in an aspiring novelist/dilettante, only to find himself pushed to the edge of insanity when his charity is taken for granted in this simmering black comedy from director Alan Cumming. John Vandermark (Cumming) has a sizable weak spot for handsome young artists. Upon Read More

America Brown

Actors: Ryan Kwanten, Hill Harper, Karen Black, Natasha Lyonne, Élodie Bouchez

Synopsis: A young man leaves his home and family in search of himself in this independent drama. America Brown (Ryan Kwanten) -- called "Ricky" by most of his friends -- was born and raised in a West Texas town where football is treated more like a religion than a game. Raised by a single mother (Karen Black Read More

Max & Grace

Actors: Rosanna Arquette, Lorraine Bracco, Tim Blake Nelson, David Paymer, Natasha Lyonne, David Krumholtz

The Straun House

Actors: Andrew Divoff, Stephen Polk, Denice Duff, John Kassir, Karen Black

Gypsy 83

Actors: Sara Rue, Kett Turton, Karen Black

Synopsis: What can help one woman overcome the fears, anxieties, and traumas of a lifetime? Perhaps the music of Stevie Nicks? Gypsy (Sara Rue) is a woman in her mid-twenties who is still emotionally stuck in adolescence; her job (at a drive-through photo processing center) is nothing to write home about Read More

Teknolust

Actors: Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Davies, James Urbaniak, Karen Black, Al Nazemian

Synopsis: In this offbeat sci-fi-drama, Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton) is a scientist specializing in biogenetics who has made a major breakthrough in artificial biological engineering. Rosetta has created a type of Self-Replicating Automaton, which looks like a human being, but is in fact part machine and Read More

Firecracker

Actors: Mike Patton, Karen Black, Susan Traylor, Kathleen Wilhoite

Synopsis: A troubled young boy suffering at the hands of his abusive older brother seeks solace in the arms of a traveling burlesque circus singer in this surreal, true crime thriller that follows in the tradition of David Lynch's Blue Velvet and marks the acting debut of former Faith No More frontman Mike Patton Read More

House of 1000 Corpses

Actors: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, Karen Black, Chris Hardwick

Synopsis: Taking his cue from such 1970s horror classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), animated rocker Rob Zombie goes celluloid with the throwback shocker House of 1000 Corpses. Running low on gas as they travel the highways of America in search of the ultimate Read More

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Actors: Dede Allen, Peter Bart, Andrew Cohen, Tony Bill, Karen Black

Synopsis: Based upon Peter Biskind's book of the same name, this BBC-produced documentary traces the rise of a generation of Hollywood filmmakers who briefly changed the face of movies with a more personal approach that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable onscreen. Influenced by such European Read More

Miner's Massacre

Synopsis: A gaggle of young adults discovers a cache of gold in an abandoned mine. Little do they realize that the vengeful ghost of the long-dead miner (Vernon Wells) protects the hoard with a gaffing hook, pick axe, and shovel, despite the efforts of the sheriff (John Phillip Law) and zany Aunt Nelly (Karen Black Read More

A Light in the Darkness

Actors: Matt Terzian, Geoffrey Lewis, Troy Beyer, Karen Black

Synopsis: Marshall Uzzle's 2002 direct-to-video horror picture A Light in the Darkness concerns Taylor Melnick (Matt Terzian), a former mental patient who is discharged after four years in a sanitarium. He returns to his hometown and runs head-first into his own psychoses, then decides to seek violent Read More

The Independent

Actors: Jerry Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Max Perlich, Ginger Lynn Allen, Billy Burke

Synopsis: Imaginary Z-grade 1960s exploitation film producer Morty Fineman (Jerry Stiller), who was responsible for such faux-works as Buddy Cops V: Hayseed and Toughnut, sci-fi blaxploitation flick The Foxy Chocolate Robot, and, of course, Heil Titler , is the focus for this Read More

Soulkeeper

Actors: Rod Rowland, Kevin Patrick Walls, Karen Black, Robert Davi, Michael Ironside

Synopsis: A pair of minor league crooks discover they're playing way out of their league when they have to face off against a legion of supernatural beasts in this tongue-in-cheek horror opus. Two low-level thieves think they've discovered a big score when they manage to steal a rare and ancient artifact Read More

The Best of TromaDance Film Festival, Vol. 1

Synopsis: Troma Team Pictures, the independent production company who've taken a brave stand for creative tastelessness with such films as The Toxic Avenger, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D., and Terror Firmer, launched their own film festival to provide a showcase for real independent filmmakers in the midst of the Read More

Red Dirt

Actors: Karen Black, Dan Montgomery, Aleksa Palladino, Walt Goggins

Synopsis: In this Southern gothic drama, Griffith (Dan Montgomery) has lived all his life in the poor Mississippi community of Pine Apple. While Griffith wants to move on and try to make something of his life, he's stranded in Pine Apple by his responsibilities to his crippled Aunt Summer (Karen Black) and Read More

Mascara

Actors: Lumi Cavazos, Ione Skye, Amanda de Cadenet, Steven Schub, Steve Jones

Synopsis: In Linda Kandel's comedy-drama Mascara, three friends find themselves dealing with the not always enjoyable prospect of turning 30 at a time when their lives are already unstable. Rebecca (Ione Skye) has trouble holding a steady job and has gone though a long series of affairs with older men. Her Read More

The Underground Comedy Movie

Actors: Michael Clarke Duncan, Gena Lee Nolin, Slash

Synopsis: First-time filmmaker Vince Offer crashes through the outer limits of bad taste in this wildly outrageous collection of comedy sketches. Adapted from material Offer first worked out on a public-access television series, The Underground Comedy Movie includes a gender-switch parody of The Godfather Read More

Men

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: John Heard, Dylan Walsh, Sean Young, Karen Black

Synopsis: A woman who enjoys playing the field begins to ponder the relative merits of long-term commitment in this witty look at love, sex, and relationships. Stella James (Sean Young) lives in New York and wants two things out of life: a career as a gourmet chef and a satisfying relationship with a man. Read More

Fallen Arches

Actors: Carmine Giovinazzo, Justin Louis, Karen Black, Peter Onorati, Richard Portnow

Synopsis: Ron Cosentino writes and directs this gangland screwball tragedy about a young street smart kid trying to protect his family. Though his mother (Karen Black) is an alcoholic, Duke Romano (Carmine D. Giovinazzo) is primarily concerned with his loser brother Frankie, who makes the monumentally Read More

First Degree

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Erika Eleniak, C. Thomas Howell, Jack Scalia

Synopsis: Los Angeles suburbanites Quinn (James Wilder) and Laura (Kimberly Kates) host a backyard barbecue of co-workers, including a doctor (C. Thomas Howell), his wife (Erika Eleniak), rough-edged Barry (Jack Scalia), and winsome Jude (Karen Black), who was recently widowed when her executive husband was Read More

Stir

Actors: Traci Lords, Andrew Heckler, Daniel Roebuck, Tony Todd, Karen Black

Synopsis: This psychological thriller is helmed Russian director Rodion Nakhapetov, who also fills a cameo role in the film. Traci Lords stars as Kelly Bekins, a recently widowed mother who takes her six-year-old son Matthew (Seth Adkins) to the motel where her scientist husband Joseph (Daniel Roebuck) was Read More

Conceiving Ada

Actors: Tilda Swinton, Francesca Faridany, Karen Black, Dr. Timothy Leary, John O'Keefe

Synopsis: In 1980 the U.S. Department of Defense named the Ada programming language in honor of Lord Byron's daughter, the mathematician Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), credited as the "first computer programmer" because of her plan for calculating Bernoulli numbers. Lady Ada was 18 when Read More

Invisible Dad

Actors: Karen Black

Synopsis: A young inventor is tinkering with his latest creation when something goes wrong, and he turns his dad into a real-life invisible man. Now the boy must somehow find a way to get him back to normal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

My Neighbor's Daughter

Actors: Samuel Bottoms, Lisa Eichhorn, Yennifer Behrens, Marco Rodriguez

Synopsis: In this drama, a much-older banker embarks upon a forbidden love affair with an adolescent girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Dogtown

Actors: Karen Black, Trevor St. John, Mary Stuart Masterson, Jon Favreau

Synopsis: A failed actor discovers how little it takes to be a V.I.P. in a small town -- and what can happen when you abuse that small amount of fame -- in this independent drama. Philip Van Horn (Trevor St. John) left his tiny hometown of Cuba, Missouri, to move to Hollywood, with big dreams of making it Read More

Tons of Trouble

Actors: Karen Black, John Laughlin

Synopsis: Where does a seven-ton elephant sleep? That's the question four kids ask when they find themselves looking after a pachyderm in this family adventure. Malaika the elephant is captured by a mean-spirited hunter, but when she escapes, several children find her and try to help her get well as well as Read More

Crimetime

Actors: Stephen Baldwin, Pete Postlethwaite, Sadie Frost, Geraldine Chaplin, Karen Black

Synopsis: Set in a future in which the media has become nearly omnipotent, this violent and gory crime thriller blurs the thin line between life and art while commenting upon the insanity of those who would do anything for fame. The trouble begins when unemployed actor Bobby is hired to play a serial killer Read More

Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering

Actors: Naomi Watts, Karen Black, William Windom, Brent Jennings, Jamie Renee Smith

Synopsis: This fourth installment in the horror saga bears little resemblance to Stephen King's original tale. Unlike the third episode, which was set in Chicago, this one is again set in a small Nebraska town where a medical student notices that the local kids are all ears when it comes to the words of a Read More

New York Crossing

Actors: Mischa Barton, Tina Majorino, Karen Black, Giancarlo Giannini

Plan 10 From Outer Space

Synopsis: This low-budget sci-fi feature attempts to satirize life in Salt Lake City, UT, and begins as a young woman locates a strange bronze plate beneath the Great Salt Lake. As she tries to unlock its secrets, she discovers that it is part of a UFO conspiracy based on actual Mormon doctrines. The aliens Read More

The Wacky Adventures of Dr. Boris and Nurse Shirley

Synopsis: Bare breasts abound in this black comedy that centers on a crooked plastic surgeon and abortionist and his nurse/lover who run the shady American Beauty Institute. There the two entice young women to come as patients. The patients are then killed and sent to the sicko Morganfeller, the richest man Read More

Who is Henry Jaglom?

Synopsis: Henry Jaglom is a filmmaker who was a pioneer of the independent film movement long before it had a name. Jaglom began his Hollywood career in the mid-Sixties as an actor, but in 1971 he wrote and directed his first feature film, A Safe Place, which starred his friends Orson Welles and Jack Read More

Sister Island

Synopsis: A doctor returns to her home island off the Mississippi coast in the wake of 1969's Hurricane Camille and ends up trying to solve the mystery of a traumatized, teenage foundling in this brooding character study. Dr. Dorie Walsh has returned to take over the island clinic, which, like many of the Read More

Bound and Gagged: A Love Story

Actors: Ginger Lynn Allen, Karen Black, Chris Denton, Elizabeth Saltarrelli, Mary Ella Ross

Synopsis: In this strange but ambitious gender-bending road movie, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Saltarrelli) and Leslie (Ginger Lynn Allen) are bisexual lovers who also have other relationships. To Leslie's chagrin, Elizabeth can't keep herself from running off with a good-looking guy every once in a while, but Read More

Cries of Silence

Actors: Kathleen York, Karen Black, Ed Nelson, Ellen Crawford, Mike Genovese

Synopsis: After a terrible hurricane ravages a tropical island, a young doctor discovers an autistic child wandering about. This touching drama follows the doctor's attempts to help her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Trust

Actors: Samuel Bottoms, Karen Black, Michael Petty

Synopsis: Back when he died in 1900, William Marsh Rice was a Texas gazillionaire, having donated the funds to start the Rice Instittute (later known as Rice University) in Houston. In this movie, based on the director's stage play, when a suspicious will turns up on the occasion of Rice's death, the Texas Read More

The Player

Actors: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher

Synopsis: Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a Read More

Auntie Lee's Meat Pies

Synopsis: Remember when Karen Black used to be in A-list pictures like Nashville and The Great Gatsby? If you're a diehard Black fan, keep those earlier triumphs in mind while watching Auntie Lee's Meat Pies. Borrowing elements from Sweeney Todd and Motel Hell, the film casts Black as a resourceful baking Read More

Rubin and Ed

Actors: Crispin Glover, Howard Hesseman, Karen Black, Michael Greene, Brittnew Lewis

Synopsis: Rubin & Ed is Trent Harris' off-the-wall buddy movie about two mismatched geeks on a quest to bury a frozen cat. Rubin Farr (Crispin Glover) is a shy, reclusive loner who lives in his mother's hotel. He'd much rather sit in his bedroom listening to Mahler, playing with his squeaky-mouse, than go Read More

The Double O Kid

Actors: Corey Haim, Brigitte Nielsen, Wallace Shawn, Nicole Eggert, John Rhys-Davies

Synopsis: This youth-oriented actioner centers on a 17-year-old boy whose exceptional video-game-playing ability leads him to become a rookie spy with a mysterious organization that assigns him to get a mysterious package to Los Angeles ASAP. En route, the youth finds himself entangled in a deadly terrorist Read More

Hitz

Synopsis: This melodrama follows the attempts of a good-hearted LA judge who tries a member of the Loco gang for the murder of two rivals. A young boy is talked into providing the key evidence to convict the gang member. Unfortunately, during the trial, fellow gangsters burst in and gun down the defendant. Read More

Final Judgement

Synopsis: In this drama, a renegade Los Angeles priest, Father Daniel Tyrone, must return to his gang-land roots to prove himself innocent of killing a stripper. His investigation leads him to the seamy underbelly of the pornographic film industry. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Caged Fear

Synopsis: Because of her thieving new husband, a young woman is thrown into jail where she is harassed by fellow prisoners and by the warden. Before long, hubby gets a chance to take on the identity of a guard so he can help her escape. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Children of the Night

Actors: Peter DeLuise, Ami Dolenz, Karen Black, Maya Mc Laughlin, Garrett Morris, Evan MacKenzie

Synopsis: This stylish chiller tells the grim tale of a sleeping vampire, Czakyr, who is inadvertently awakened when his ancient crypt beneath a church is flooded. At the same time, Cindy and Lucy, two teenage girls, prepare to go to college. Cindy is only visiting the town while Lucy is a local. Just Read More

The Children

Actors: Ben Kingsley, Kim Novak, Siri Neal, Geraldine Chaplin, Joe Don Baker

Synopsis: Ben Kingsley stars in this solid adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel (filmed previously in 1929 as The Marriage Playground). Kingsley plays Martin Boyne, an engineer in 1920s Europe who, after five years of correspondence, is planning to travel overseas to marry the recently widowed Rose Sellars Read More

Haunting Fear

Actors: Jan-Michael Vincent, Brinke Stevens, Karen Black

Synopsis: Exploitation king Fred Olen Ray bulldozes Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Premature Burial" in this sleazy direct-to-video thriller. B-movie babe Brinke Stevens stars as an heiress tormented night and day by the ever-present phobia of being buried alive. Thanks to hypnotic past-life regression Read More

Hotel Oklahoma

Actors: David Keith, Deborah May, Ray Sharkey, Karen Black

Synopsis: Certain fans of cheesy women-in-prison movies may be somewhat disappointed in this feature, as there is no nudity throughout the picture. In this story, Kristen Bell (Kristen Cloke) has taken the rap for her boyfriend's theft of an expensive ring and has been sentenced to prison. She finds herself Read More

Quiet Fire

Synopsis: In this thriller, the owner of a popular health spa is forced to go into hiding because he knows that a prominent (and corrupt) congressman, who is running for a seat in the Senate, is responsible for the death of his friend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Blood Money

Actors: Wings Hauser, Karen Black, Robert Z'Dar, Joe Palese, Elaine Pelino

Synopsis: Wings Hauser stars in this direct-to-video thriller as John Saxon, an L.A. cop who learns that the head of a counterfeiting plot is the same man who rescued him from certain death in Vietnam. Also titled Blood Money. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Evil Spirits

Actors: Michael Berryman, Arte Johnson, Karen Black

Synopsis: An interesting bit of casting enlivens this psycho-thriller set in a California boarding house run by eccentric Karen Black with a rogue's gallery of bizarre tenants and more dark secrets than the Bates Motel. Tenants have a habit of disappearing rather abruptly from this particular residence Read More

Overexposed

Actors: Catherine Oxenberg, David Naughton, Jennifer Edwards, William Bumiller, John Patrick Reger

Synopsis: In this sudsy and violent melodrama, a prominent actress is tormented by both an obsessive stalker and a trauma from her distant past. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Mirror, Mirror

Actors: Karen Black, Rainbow Harvest, Kristin Dattilo-Hayward, Ricky Paull Goldin, Yvonne De Carlo

Synopsis: In this straightforward horror film, a new widow (Karen Black) and her daughter (Rainbow Harvest) have just moved into a new home. They don't discover until much later that the previous owner was mad, mad, mad. By then, the mirror that the woman left behind in the house has served its purpose as a Read More

Club Fed

Actors: Jennifer Delora

Synopsis: The FBI wants to shut down a luxurious minimum-security prison, so a high-placed official (Joseph Campanella) sends an undercover agent (Lance Kinsey) to root out any sign of crime. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Zapped Again!

Actors: Todd Eric Andrews, Marie McCann, Reed Rudy

Synopsis: The sequel to Zapped!, this comedy follows the wacky events that occur when a mysterious formula endows a geeky high school boy with telekinetic abilities. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Night Angel

Actors: Isa Anderson, Karen Black, Linden Ashby, Debra Feuer, Helen Martin

Synopsis: In this horror film, a vamp masquerades as a fashion model and uses her feminine wiles to suck the souls and life from wimpy men. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Homer and Eddie

Actors: James Belushi, Whoopi Goldberg, Karen Black, John Waters, Beah Richards, Robert Glaudini

Synopsis: Director Andrei Konchalovsky comes a cropper with this mawkish road movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and James Belushi. Goldberg plays Edwina, an escaped mental patient with a brain tumor and only a month to live. Belushi is Homer, a retarded man abandoned by his parents when he was a child after a Read More

Out of the Dark

Actors: Cameron Dye, Karen Black, Bud Cort, Lynn Danielson, Starr Andreeff

Synopsis: In this suspense thriller with a few humorous touches, an employee of a phone-sex service (Lynn Danielson) is being stalked by a clown-masked psychotic killer (Cameron Dye) who has already murdered a number of her colleagues. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide Read More

Twisted Justice

Actors: David Heavener, Erik Estrada, Karen Black, Shannon Tweed, Jim Brown

Synopsis: In this futuristic actioner set in the year 2020, guns have become so illegal that even cops cannot use them to stop criminals. But officer James Tucker is a maverick and carries with him an enormous homemade revolver, which he uses to blow away bad-guys and psychotic criminals. His newest Read More

Judgement

The Invisible Kid

Actors: Jay Underwood, Karen Black, Wally Ward, Chynna Phillips, Brother Theodore

Synopsis: This pre-teen comedy finds the studious Grover (Jay Underwood) using the notes of his late scientist father to complete a project. With unsolicited help from pigeon droppings, a substance is created that renders the consumer invisible for 30 minutes. The effectiveness decreases by five minutes R