"Last Gasp"- 

Anyone who saw this movie prior to season 8 of the X-Files 
began probably wasn't surprised to learn that Robert Patrick 
would be joining the show. This movie looks exactly like an XF 
episode - and here I am actually thinking of one episode in 
particular ("Shapes"). 

Robert plays Leslie Chase, an architect intent on building a 
hotel on ground the local tribe (the Totec) considers sacred. 
So when several members of his construction crew are found dead 
with ankle tendons cut ("they don't like you running!") and the 
skin ripped off their chests, Leslie decides that the tribe 
needs to be 'taken care of'. Of course, by 'taken care of' I 
mean shot down like deer during hunting season. 

When Leslie and the men he has blackmailed into driving the 
Totec into extinction come across a tribal chief that is not 
yet dead, Leslie is told the legend of the Totec. "You can't 
get too near a dying Totec...something to do with their 
spirits...Totec are supposed to live forever. They believe a 
man's soul escapes to another body in his dying breath." 

They don't realize they have left a sole surviving member of 
the tribe - a Totec chief - until they are attacked. The chief 
pins Leslie to the ground bodily and does a messy impression of 
Count Dracula before Leslie is able to reach the knife that has 
been dropped on the ground and ram it into the chief's neck. 
Unfortunately, this leaves him trapped underneath a dying 
Totec. I'm sure you can guess the result of this.

Fast forward several months (I think...I have to start reading 
the stuff printed on the bottom of the screen). Now we meet 
Nora Weeks, a woman whose husband - a construction worker 
(gee...you think there's some sort of connection?) - has 
disappeared inexplicably. 

She hires an FBI agent to find out what happened to him. The 
agent finds out that Nora's husband, Julian, worked for 
Leslie's construction company. So he heads out to do some 
investigating at the company headquarters (I think) which is 
apparently not far from where Leslie lives - in a mansion with 
an entryway that is very reminiscent of "Gone with the Wind". 

And that is the last anybody hears from the FBI agent...

So Nora heads out to find her husband herself (of course the 
audience, as always more intelligent than the characters, knows 
the man is already dead). One thing leads to another and she 
realizes that Leslie is the murderer. 

The funny thing is, we can't exactly hate him for what he does. 
We know that when he runs around in a loincloth (I bet I just 
got a bunch of female's attentions) and war paint that, 
basically, someone else is 'driving'...literally. This is 
revealed through various conversations and scenes where we 
watch him "become" the dead Totec chief. At one point, Nora 
points a gun at him and he holds out his arms to basically say 
'go ahead, shoot me'. "You're the only one that can end this 
for me, Nora..." I'll stop now, before I say too much...

Meanwhile, of course, Nora's best friend Goldie has fallen for 
Leslie, completely ignoring Nora's warnings of potential danger 
because he is "unmarried and incredibly wealthy" so, of course, 
she is blind to everything else. There's a great line here: 
"Love may be blind, but I'm here to tell you that lust is blind 
*and* deaf. And dumb...*really* dumb!" Of course, there's also 
something to be said here about the love of money... 

I won't give away the ending. I'll just say that it is a 
classic X-Files ending. Take that as you will. 

~Diandra Hollman