Chyna Shepherd is a twenty-six-year-old psychology student who survived an extremely troubled past. While visiting Laura Templeton's house, a farm in the Napa Valley. A serial killer named Edgler Foreman Vess breaks into the house, killing Laura and her parents. Chyna survives, but she learns of Vess's captive: a girl, just as innocent as Chyna, trapped in Vess's home far from the Napa Valley.
Acting
John C. McGinley's Vess: unhinged, magnetic, deeply wrong.
Direction
Yves Simoneau stretches TV movie constraints to genuine cinematic tension.
Writing
Koontz's novel distilled—messy, purple, but undeniably propulsive.
Director
Yves Simoneau
John C. McGinley
Edgler Foreman Vess
Molly Parker
Chyna Shepherd
Blu Mankuma
Ethan Trevaine
Lori Triolo
Lori
Brent Stait
Jim Woltz
Piper Laurie
Miriam Braynard
Deanna Milligan
Laura Templeton
Kavan Smith
Jack Templeton
Alex Diakun
Mr. John Q. Citizen
Alf Humphreys
George Jespersen (as Alfred E. Humphreys)
Gillian Barber
Chairperson
Jerry Wasserman
Head of the Hospital
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Filmed in Vancouver standing in for Napa Valley, giving it that eerily familiar 90s X-Files look.
One of the rare faithful Koontz adaptations—probably because he co-produced and McGinley understood Vess needed theatrical menace, not realism.
US
