Thomas is the 12-year-old son of a millionaire who lives in a big mansion surrounded by woods in France. When his mother dies, his father hires a widowed maid to take care of everything while he is away. The woman brings her only son, Charles, to live with them and, hopefully, be company to lonesome Thomas. The rich boy and the poor one become enemies from the very first encounter. Moved essentially by jealousy and fear, Thomas decides to turn Charles’ life into a hell on Earth, especially after their parents eventually fall in love. As the title suggests, he wants to make it clear to the invader who is the lord of the castle.
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Thriller
Inner Sanctum (1948) Lew Landers, Charles Russell, Mary Beth Hughes, Dale Belding, Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
A man accidentally kills his fiancée as he exits a train. Just as the train pulls out, he drops her body on the rear platform. No one saw him do it, but someone does see him at the otherwise deserted station: a mischievous, freckle-faced boy. Later, he’s walking along a road when the town’s newspaper editor stops and gives him a lift. The editor tells his passenger that a flood has washed out the bridge. For now, there’s no way out of town, so he takes the stranger to a boarding house. Fate decrees that of all houses, this is the one where the boy lives. The boy thinks he recognizes the new boarder. The new boarder thinks it’s time to get rid of the boy. And a sexy blonde living at the house thinks it’s time to run off with a man she knows is a murderer.
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Die Lügen der Sieger / The Lies of the Victors (2014) Christoph Hochhäusler, Florian David Fitz, Horst Kotterba, Lilith Stangenberg, Thriller
Investigative journalist Fabian Groys enjoys great freedom since the stories he uncovers make for strong sales. He works for a political news magazine in their Berlin head office. In this context, his arrogance raises few eyebrows.
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Zwartboek / Black Book (2006) Paul Verhoeven, Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Drama, Thriller, War
Israel 1956. Rachel, a Jew, rather unexpectedly meets an old friend at the kibbutz where she is working as a teacher. It brings back memories of her experiences in The Netherlands during the war, memories of betrayal. September 1944. Rachel is in trouble when her hiding place is bombed by allied troops. She gets in contact with a man from the resistance and joins a group of Jews who are to be smuggled across the Biesbosch by boat to the freed South Netherlands. Germans from a patrol boat murder them all however. Only Rachel is able to escape. She is rescued by a resistance group under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers. When Kuipers’ son is captured after trying to smuggle weapons, he asks Rachel to seduce SS-hauptsturmführer Ludwig Müntze. Soon she will find out the attack in the Biesbosch wasn’t a coincidence.
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The Terminal Man (1974) Mike Hodges, George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart, Sci-Fi, Thriller
As the result of a head injury, brilliant computer scientist Harry Benson begins to experience violent seizures. In an attempt to control the seizures, Benson undergoes a new surgical procedure in which a microcomputer is inserted into his brain. The procedure is not entirely successful.
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Das Experiment / The Experiment (2001) Oliver Hirschbiegel, Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Drama, Thriller
The movie is based on the infamous “Stanford Prison Experiment” conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab, complete with cells, bars and surveillance cameras. For two weeks 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards. The ‘prisoners’ are locked up and have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the ‘guards’ are told simply to retain order without using physical violence. Everybody is free to quit at any time, thereby forfeiting payment. In the beginning the mood between both groups is insecure and rather emphatic. But soon quarrels arise and the wardens employ ever more drastic sanctions to confirm their authority.
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Le Journal intime d’une nymphomane / Diary of a Nymphomaniac (1973) Jesús Franco, Howard Vernon, Doris Thomas, Anne Libert, Thriller, Exploitation, Drama, Erotic
Linda Vargas picks up Ortiz in a bar where she works in a lesbian show with Maria Toledano. She seduces him, phones the police and kills herself. Ortiz is held on suspicion of her murder. Ortiz’s wife, Rosa, visits a friend of Linda’s, the Countess Anna de Monterey who tells her how Linda went into a spiral of sex and drugs after being assaulted by Ortiz as a young girl at a fair-ground. Linda became the Countess’s lover, then had a disastrous love affair with Alberto, the Countess’ boyfriend. Rosa also meets Maria, who holds Linda’s diary, where she relates how a fake Doctor turned her away from drugs and into a nymphomaniac.
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Happy Birthday to Me (1981) J. Lee Thompson, Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Virginia Wainwright is a spirited young woman who has returned to a private school having survived a deadly accident and regenerative brain surgery. She is proud that she belongs to the Top Ten – the school’s inner circle with the best students – and attempts to resume a normal life. But her friends are falling prey to a grueling series of murders, and soon there will be no one left to attend her 18th birthday party. Could it be her? Striving to rekindle the memory of her nightmarish accident, Virginia suffers from memory loss and traumatic blackouts. We soon learn the horrible truth behind her accident and what is going on before her birthday party…
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Izolator / Warsaw Dark (2008) Christopher Doyle, Anna Przybylska, Adam Ferency, Leslaw Zurek, Thriller
Prominent cinematographer Christopher Doyle continues to hone his talents as a director with this thriller set in Eastern Europe and inspired by the as-yet-unsolved murder of a Polish politician in 2001. A young prostitute is spending the evening with a prominent Polish official when he’s suddenly assassinated in Warsaw. In the aftermath of the hit, the triggerman takes the prostitute to an apartment and subjects her to a complex personality replacement program designed to wipe out any memories she may have retained about the evening’s events.
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Sisters (1973) Brian De Palma, Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning, Horror, Thriller
The Staten Island apartment of lovely model Danielle becomes the scene of a grisly murder that is witnessed by her neighbor, Grace, a reporter. But the police don’t believe her story, so it’s up to Grace to solve the murder mystery on her own.
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The Haunting of Morella (1990) Jim Wynorski, Nicole Eggert, David McCallum, Christopher Halsted, Horror, Romance, Thriller
A witch is put to death in Colonial America, leaving her husband and infant daughter behind. Seventeen years later, the daughter has grown up and stands to inherit money set up by her mother’s family. Now that the stage is set, the mother wants to return to life by taking over her daughter’s body.
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Doctor Blood’s Coffin (1961) Sidney J. Furie, Kieron Moore, Hazel Court, Ian Hunter, Horror, Thriller
People are mysteriously disappearing near a remote Cornish village, where a scientist is experimenting with reviving the dead.
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Genova a mano armata / Merciless Man (1976) Mario Lanfranchi, Tony Lo Bianco, Maud Adams, Adolfo Celi, Crime, Thriller
The city suffers and succumbs unarmed, but an ex secret agent succeeds in winning the struggle against the gangsterism. Intrigue and violence grip a society victim of the crime.
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L’héritier / The Inheritor (1973) Philippe Labro, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Carla Gravina, Jean Rochefort, Action, Drama, Thriller
When his father, a wealthy industrialist, is killed in aeroplane crash, Bart Cordell returns to France to take up the reins of the empire he has inherited. When a prostitute attempts to frame him for drug smuggling, he begins to suspect is father may have been murdered. Bart’s investigation uncovers a complex web of political intrigue, in which his own family and his stepfather are heavily implicated…
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La chambre des morts / Room of Death (2007) Alfred Lot, Mélanie Laurent, Éric Caravaca, Gilles Lellouche, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Two unemployed computer technicians discover 2 million euros next to a dead body in a field of windmills. The money that they find deepens their pre-existing dominator-dominated relationship. The next day, a young blind girl is found dead near the site of the dicovery and it seems that the stolen money had been intended to pay her ransom. Another child is then kidnapped and the police carry out an investigation, in particular a young sergeant who is fascinated by the tragic event.
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