This is an attempt to create a list of alternate movies that sound interesting, and explanatory of their culture so that a GM can say...
"You're driving your three-wheel electric cabriolet through the streets of New Amsterdam with your girlfriend Sheila, and she spots the movie XXXXXXXXXXX on the marquee and asks if you can go watch it with her."
1. Steelblood: This movie exalts the local reality Dagger Teams who are the this-world equivalent of SEALS. It fits comfortably in between Die Hard and Navy Seals. It has a lot of action, male bonding, knife fights, and desperate action along with the bold heroes seeking out and destroying the wicked.
'Its not hard figuring out what's right. Its the doing it.' Jake Smith, famous mature actor.
'Yeah, all you need is steel in your fist, and steel in your blood' Mike Angellii, famous Italian lead.
2. Draw or Die: A murder mystery focusing on a sketch artist who is suffering from artistic doubts. The scene where he blindfolded and tied in a chair uses a pencil snub to sketch the face of his captor on the floor so that after he is taken to the cabin in the woods where he is to be killed, the pursuing detective can match the face to the ID files,a nd then the ID files to the property owner files is one of the tensest fifteen minutes in modern cinema as you are sure that he is about to fail no fewer than eleven times. When he succeeded in the first showing, the audience got up and cheered.
3. Oil Mangler, Oil Mangler Two, Ship Mangler, Town Mangler, Return of the Mangler, and the New Mangler are not very good flicks, but they made a lot of money. A man is killed through the laziness of his bosses on an oil rig, and his soul possesses and animates the rig. So he goes on a rampage toward land, destroying things in his sub-intellgent fury until the hero figures out the problem and guides him the the headquarters of the oil company which got him killed. He destroys the building after everyone but the execs escape. Then he makes them get on the conference table and throws the table and the execs twenty miles out to sea. And then his soul goes to Paradise.
Ship and Town respectively featured a possessed ship, and a small town that animated itself and ate visitors.
4. Killicarne': This demented comedy about an invasion of Scottish serial killers having a competition about how many they can kill at the World Barbecue and Carnival Festival in Texas, Tejas, North Mexico, or the Southern Territories as it may be called provoked a devoted, cult-like following although no one took it seriously enough to act on it. However, it did provoke a lot of people to dress up very strangely on August the 13th which is the supposed date of this imaginary festival. And it led to lots of nerds quoting lines from the film to each other.
Last but not least it led to the entertaining biography of the world's most famous clown entitled..."Clowns Are Not Worth Extra Points."
5. Hard Times, Good Times: This serious drama about the romance and marriage and kids and life and marital problems, and grandkids and everything else runs over three hours. Its considered a modern classic in its depiction of normal middle class life in a big city, and all the struggles that go with it.
"I love her, more than the day we married." Father.
"Then why do you yell at her so often?" Eldest adult son.
"Because she makes me mad, of course!" Father looks incredulously at his son. "Don't you know? Love don't mean its easy. I thought I trained you three boys better than that."
6. Path of Evil: This is a disturbing look at how an idealistic young man became a Communist, and for the best of reasons ended up executing families 'for the good of the State'. Its bleak portrayal of life in a totalitarian environment will raise questions in your own mind...Could I become like that person? Are we all just murderers inside? The movie has an answer which you may not agree with. Yes.
7. Doomsword: The cursed sword passed down generation to generation until it came to him, the seventh son of a seventh son, and then it came to its true power. In his hands, the sword made him unstoppable, and so he was able to defend the Earth against Eldritch Threats from the Abyss. But every time he drew it, one of his friends or his family died. He now casts it aside, but the Daemon Prince of Hades is coming....what will he do?
Spoiler: His girlfriend offers herself up to the sword, and is accepted. However, he stabs himself through the heart sacrificing himself as well. Its uncertain whether this overloaded the sword with two lives in it, and thus his girlfriend became the sword. Or if the sword really wanted his total committment all along,a nd once he sacrificed himself he was no longer cursed. And the thing with his girlfriend was a tragic last death that was not needed.
In any case, his sword is no longer cursed, and his girlfriend lives in the sword as its spirit.
Critics still argue which interpretaton is correct.
8. Feud at Stanton: The collapse of national authority after the bioplague leaves two families near the small town of Stanton feuding for dominance over Stanton. It begins slow with harsh words, but then it escalates, and soon both sides are sniping each other, blowing up offices, and burning down homes. The cycle driven at first by a desire for power becomes about revenge, and finally becomes about survival.
In the end, one man lives.
And the townspeople of Stanton drive him out with stones.
9. Blood Prince: The Lord of Darkness, the vampire Dracula is here to take over a capital city. He maneuvers, he blackmails, he seduces with promises of money and power, and with his own presence. Meanwhile, a desperate team of federal investigators is trying to track him down. Dracula consolidates his power, and has killed several of the more recalcitrant of his enemies.
Now he owns the city, and he uses his forces to take the heroic team to him. He laughs at them, and promises a reign of blood to last a thousand years.
"Not even a night." Claire Jones says from the window of the Oval Office, Presidential Palace, Throne Room, etc..
"God's played his trump card." She adds.
He scoffs.
She points out the window into the sky.
Everyone goes and looks up into the sky to see an asteroid plunging to Earth on top of the Capital city.
Flashback to an earlier shown scene in the movie where Dracula was killing an annoyingly principled astronomer who was babbling some warning about a rock or something before Drac snapped his neck.
Roll credits.
10. Haunted is the story of a lady desperately needing to buy a large house for her school. The only house in town that is cheap enough, and large enough is a haunted Victorian mansion that can't be sold.
She moves in to get it ready. Soon, ghostly things like figures appearing out of the corner of her eye, and skulls in the mirror, and blood dripping down walls appears.
Her response is at first startlement, and then she starts trying to chase them down. She arms up and looks for dark basements to go into. When ghostly children appear, she yells at them to 'Stop Right There! I didn't give you permission to leave.'
While an attractive, but harried looking female, she is not a superstar for looks, but she carried this role with verve and authenticity. One believes her fury when a knife fly's across the room at her head.
And when she starts praying, and demanding that the spirits obey her, the spirit laughs at her.
"There is no god."
"How does that go? Ah yes, liar, liar, pants on fire. There is, I know it, and He's in charge of everything including you."
She resumes, and soon the spirit is begging her for mercy, and she's demanding information about what horrors occurred here.
She begins to clean the house of the remnants of its evil past, removing wallpaper to take down blood-soaked boards which drip in her hands until she yells at the spirit responsible to 'come out now, In the Holy Name, or else!'
After that one is dispacted, its on to other parts of the house.
And then the basement, and her confrontation with the Power. The Power toys with her, laughs at her, and after beating her up condenses out of smoke in the form of a man.
"You're going to die here. There is no god." He laughs sinisterly.
(^&^*&(_*)& is her response.
"He's abandoned you to me." He uses his magic to tie her to a table, and manifests a knife.
"Fine." she says calmly.
"Fine?" He repeats incredulously.
"Yes, I may win through faith, close the mouth of lions, or I may lose and the lions eat me, but I still trust. He knows what He is doing."
The Power raises its hand to knife her in horror, and we see she is glowing.
He cringes back, and she glows more. He turns to run, and she fills the room with radiance. He turns to curse her, and blows away in the radiant fury of the Holy Presence.
Next scene is of the house from the outside as light shines through every window.
The house is cleansed.
She leaves to go find her students which she hasn't signed up yet.
She notices a few faeries flying away in the peaceful garden the next morning and asks them where they are going.
"We leave, Servant of the One God."
"I have no quarrel with you. You're not malicious and evil."
"We are born of Chaos and Wildness and have little love."
"Still..."
"NO. This house, this land, its under the Law of Love. We have no place here. The Wild and the Crazed have no rest in the land of the Kind. Besides..."
The faerie spokesperson points at the four corners of the estate where giant angelic figures with flaming swords stand guard.
"They make us nervous."
===============================================================
So, I'm sure I missed all sorts of genres of movies, and I could use more movies of the same genres. Have at it!
Also, feel free to discuss my imaginary movies.
Eric
11. How To Build a Universe in Seven Days: This zany comedy, and philosophical tour de force made the careers of a number of young actors. It explored the viewpoint of a young man struck by tragedy who challenged God on the grounds that he could do a better job. So God gives him the job of designing a universe, and every time he tries to do something to fix things in Universe 2.0, it makes the situation worse. Eventually, he hands his Temporal Toolbox back, and to his surprise, God compliments him....sorta.
"Not half bad. It would explode in elementary particles and total madness in five hundred years, but thats much better than when I discussed this issue with Martin Luther. His universe only lasted a hundred years. Here, let me fix a few things..."
A quick swirl there, and there, and a Universe is glowing.
"Do you want to say it, or shall I?" God asks.
"Say what?"
"Let there be light..."
And there was light.
"Oops, I guess I said it." God says with knowing humor in his voice.
12. Lady Light: Two souls, the perfect couple, have met and been drawn apart over and over again through time. Neither remembers the past, but in each life they try unconsciously to find each other.
However, the failures are grinding them down. The girl has given up hope. The boy yearns and fumbles and can't seem to succeed at anything.
They meet each other, and seem perfect for each other, but both are too depressed to see it.
And then he hits her car, and puts her in the hospital. He has no money to pay, and she is bedridden and about to lose her bookstore. They make a bitter deal to avoid suing where he will work at her bookstore for her until she is ready to leave the hospital.
It turns out that he is a very good bookstore owner. And as he reports his progress day by day to the bedridden girl, she is by turns incredulous, and then worried that he will steal it from her, and then thankful, and then paranoiad and screaming at him...and then she yells something about how she has been waiting a thousand lifetimes, and what is so hard about closing a deal?
Confused, despondent, he leaves, and finds a book in the bookstore with the tale of their last life. And so he goes off to rescue her from her suicide attempt in a rainstorm off the top of the hospital....
13. Starfarer 1-8: The winding complicated tale of a noble family, friends, enemies, and associates in the year 3000 which is the one hundred seventieth year of the Galactic Empire. Politics, intrigue, romance, and the very best depiction of starship fleets in combat ever made. The land combat strategy and tactics is very good as well. So much so, that its required watching in the military academies. It basically has something for everyone with mystical powers, and an amusing Irendorian space snake, and detailed space combat...and...thus each of the shows is well over three hours long.
And for some people, its a way of life. There are well over two hundred books (novels, spaceship schematics, and the series Revealed Secrets of the Noble Houses to keep its fans entwined.) Conventions, and autograph signings, and the lead actors got to visit the President.
14. Rebel Star: What if the Lords of the Ivory Towers were able to break through into Earth by their evil magic, and take over the world? Its a thinly veiled social critique of the Establishment reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz, and a truly chilling portrayal of the nature of a totalitarian dictatorship by 'those who know best' and are not limited by religion or morality.
The heroes fight back in a resistance movment centered in the mountains, and live a primitive life under their flag--the Rebel Star.
The magic system is very intriguing as well.
15. Fast Food: This comedy covers the travails of a family of four and a couple hitchhikers who are trying to get out of the Sandy Dessert. But they keep getting lost, their RV breaks down at all the wrong moments, bridges are washed out by flash floods, maniacs chase them, and rattlers climb into their sleeping bags at night.
Meanwhile a pair of sardonic vultures trail them speculating between themselves about when the 'fast food' will stop moving.
In the end, the family does escape, and so do their new friends the hitchhikers. But, the oldest girl who's been dating losers is now attached to one of the nice guy hithhikers, and the other hitchiker who is wandering the world for the last year of his life as he suffers an incurable disease has convinced them to enjoy life now.
And the family finds they really did like the Sandy Dessert. So they buy an abandoned truckstop, and move in.
16. Law of the Gun: A crime drama about a disabled veteran trying to get the police and the Establishment to stop the depredations of the gangs in his area. When he finds that the pols are on the pay of the gangs, and have basically given his neighbourhood over to the gangs as prey, he becomes coldly furious.
Then he arranges through a series of devious manipulations to have everyone in on these deals to meet at an abandoned factory.
He confronts them from the outside, and asks them to stop, threatens them with proof, and of going to the news media.
The chief gangster laughs back.
"I would kill any reporter who actually showed what was going on. And they know it. They're scared."
Its true, the hero realizes remembering some past experiences as he tried to get help.
"Its the Law of the Gun. Everyone comes up with rationalizations why they couldn't help you, but the real reason they couldn't was they were afraid." The gang leader explains almost kindly.
"All right then, the Law of the Gun it is." The hero says, and calls his wounded vet pals who are standing by a half mile away next to a 105 mm howitzer. "Problem for you, is I have a bigger gun."
The shells rain in on the factory...Roll Credits...snipped of a scene of the vet living in peace and harmony on his street with the formerly terrorized residents out and about gardening and playing in the street....
17. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life is a tribute to a man who was consequential despite the fact of never achieving the Presidency.
His advocacy of manliness, boldness, conservation, and energetic self-improvement in a framework of faith made him an icon to a generation.
Add in the realistic portrayal of the Old West with deeply researched historical details, and this is the most famous biographical movie of the century.
18. Saving Raygun: The thinly disguised President is the object of a temporal war between a number of sides. A hard core Soviet (after the Wall fell) temporal strike team assasinates him on a movie set in his youth, and this provokes a post-apocalyptic future. This new future sends a team back to save him. They meet, fight, save the future President, and the Soviet team tries again in the Fifties.
Here two sub-plots emerge. A discussion by the two teams causes a defection by the more reasonable members of the Soviet team to the other team. And the most hardcore of the Soviet team recruit Hollywood actors and State Department officials who they know from history are Soviet agents.
There is a final duel between the two teams. And then the two team leaders struggle over a temporal device, and this causes them to become unstuck in time. The background swirls past them as they bounce and jitter through time. Trees appear where there was a sapling, and young guys smoke drugs and a second later lecture their children about not doing drugs. And all the while you hear people talking about how dangerous anti-communism is, except when the Soviet team leader is winning.
When he is winning, the world changes to gulags, and executions, and show trials. In the final moments, the future flips between a pleasant future and a post-apocalyptic wasteland as the two men struggle with their last strengths.
This movie was reviewed on M.J. Young's Temporal Analyis Website for World News Net.
"An almost impenetrable mass of illogic in its temporal structure, but fun to watch anyways. Four stars."
19. Four Diamonds is a screwball comedy that is a favorite of the female crowd, and not unappealing to many males. Its about a girl obsessed with diamonds, who has three guys romantically chasing her. She is trying to win an art competition to win a diamond as the prize, and the three guys are trying to win her.
But she likes them all. And she can't make up her mind.
Much wild hijinks ensues.
20. Soccer Dad: A family movie about a father trying to bond with his young soccer playing son, finding that he has to take over the soccer team to keep the team going as the coach leaves for a job in another state, and with the help of his dog (which is his reincarnated father), he leads the team to a successful season, and bonds firmly with his son.
And there's my 1d20 chart of alternate movies.