Hollywood.com’s 2004 Fall Movie Guide

The Hype: Father Lankester Merrin (Skarsgard) thinks that he has glimpsed the face of Evil. In the years following World War II, Merrin is relentlessly haunted by memories of the unspeakable brutality perpetrated against the innocent people of his parish. While drifting through Cairo, he is approached by a collector of rare antiquities to join a British archeological excavation in a remote region of Kenya. They have unearthed a Christian Byzantine church in inexplicably pristine condition–as if it had been buried on the day it was completed. But beneath the church, something much older sleeps, waiting to be awoken. In the place where Evil was born, Merrin will finally see its true face.

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The Hype: Three young guys head off into the Oregon wilderness in search of a lost treasure. They take a canoe upriver, and everything that can go wrong does. Hunted by two backwoods dope farmers, they encounter death-defying rapids, tree-hugging hippie chicks–and a crazy old mountain man (Burt Reynolds, in an apt cameo).

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The Hype: A scientific expedition is assembled by a powerful pharmaceutical company to search for a rare black orchid in the deep recesses of the jungles of Borneo. Their hope is that the orchid can be used to unlock the secrets of youth and immortality. What they soon discover is that the orchid is already being used by a denizen host of giant snakes to augment their strength, size and vitality–not to mention their appetites. – Top