Mary Higgins Clark Dvd Collection

Rating:
Summary: All around the town...
Review: Mary Higgins Clark is one of those authors who regularly achieve bestsellerdom -- her thrillers can be a bit hackneyed, but they are still entertaining tales of murder, love, insanity and cold-hearted nastiness. While the "Mary Higgins Clark DVD Collection" is made of pretty ordinary suspense movies, it's a pretty chilling ride.

"All Around the Town" opens with a mysterious murder -- a handsome college professor is found dead. Suspicion falls on a seemingly normal young student, Laurie Kinmount (Kim Schraner), who was apparently infatuated with him. Justin Donnelly (Michael Shanks) takes the girl into his care, trying to figure out the apparent cause of this murder -- her multiple personalities, spawned by childhood sexual abuse.

"Haven't We Met Before?" tackles the question of reincarnation -- a young woman (Nicolette Sheridan) finds herself being followed by a strange man (Page Fletcher). A man, in fact, is an escaped mental patient, who believes she was his cruel lover in a past life... and now he's out for revenge.

In "Loves Music, Loves To Dance," Erin Kelley (Cynthia Preston) is answering personal ads for a TV special -- until she ends up dead. Traumatized by her friend's death, TV producer Darcy Scott (Patsy Kensit) becomes obsessed with finding the murderer. Against the advice of the police, she goes out with the men who dated Erin -- and finds herself at the mercy of a crazed killer.

In "Pretend You Don't See Her," Lacey Farrell (Emma Samms) witnesses a murder by a man she didn't see clearly. Because the killer is a pro hit-man, she is placed in the Witness Protection Program, with a new job, identity, and unable to contact the friends and family from her old life. But soon the murderer learns of her whereabouts, and Lacey must find a way to escape him, or face becoming his next victim...

It's not a "Lucky Day" for Nora Barkin (Amanda Donohoe), an aspiring actress whose husband buys a lottery ticket because he feels lucky. At first, things seem good -- her husband Jack (Gregor Toerzs) calls to say that they are going to celebrate, then vanishes with a winning lottery ticket. Determined to find out what happened, Nora goes over her husband's activities that day... and finds more than she bargained for.

"You Belong To Me" is what Dr. Susan Chandler (Lesley-Anne Down) is afraid of -- she's using her radio show to investigate lonely women who become prey for a ruthless serial killer. But as she delves deeper into the mystery of the women's deaths, Susan becomes a target for the murderer herself -- and has no idea of what is awaiting her.

These are pretty standard TV movies, with lots of cops, amateur detectives and creepy crimes (some of which are done by men who are completely off their rocker). The writing and acting are pretty much standard, without much that stands out, but not too much that is bad either. The worst moments are in "Loves Music, Loves to Dance," where the director tries too hard to make scenes with the murderer feel eerie and insane. Most of the time, the movies have the hard, cold edge of a cop thriller.

They're not quite Hercule Poirot, but the "Mary Higgins Clark DVD Collection" is an entertaining collection of murder mysteries -- often eerie, always chilling.