Stalking Laura DVD with Viveka Davis, John Durbin, Marj Dusay (Unrated) +Movie Reviews

Richard Thomas is a villain you'll love to hate

Tracy Vest | Northern California | 08/21/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Laura Black (Brooke Shields) just graduated from UC Davis and got a primo job working for a defense contractor in the Silicon Valley. She unwittingly captures the attention of a fellow worker, Richard Farley (played chillingly by Richard "John Boy" Thomas), who becomes fixated on her to the point of obsession. After finally spurning his attentions, reporting him to HR, and filing a restraining order, Richard gets a slap on the wrist, resigns, then returns to the office to seek vengeance against the woman who dared to not return his affections armed to the hilt. Going on a shooting rampage that took a company hostage and left many dead in his wake, Thomas is the epitome of a cold and calculating killer. You won't look at John Boy Walton in the same way after viewing this. Or the Togo's #23 sandwich.

The story is all the more chilling since it is based on actual events which eventually led to California's stringent anti-stalking laws and a company's responsibility to its employees in creating a safe workplace."

Great Movie

Taylor Wilkinson | Apple Valley, CA USA | 04/26/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was a great movie. The true story of a woman that was stalked by a man she worked with. He was everywhere she went. She never even dated him. She told him from the beginning that they would only have a professional relationship but he ignored her. Eventually he was fired for his behavior. When the problems he caused were going to prevent her from getting a promotion she finally filed for a restraining order. That threw him over the edge. He armed himself as if he were going to war and went to work with one thing on his mind. Kill as many as he could.

Great movie. This event helped create Anti-Stalking laws in California."

Not the Waltons' Richard Thomas

Old Softy | Florida | 04/04/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Richard Thomas was at his best in this movie. Forget John-Boy! Thomas was absolutely chilling in his portrayal of a crazed stalker, and eventually, killer. Sadly, incidents such as what happened in this true story have since happened far too frequently, including one just yesterday. Nevertheless, this movie gives you valuable insight into the mind of the type of troubled and deranged person who would do something of this magnitude. Despite the violence, this is a 5 star movie."

Chillingly accurate TV movie of a true event

langleybcguy | Langley, BC, Canada | 05/10/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I found this little gem after a lot of searching on various sites. Having seen it 14 years ago when it appeared on TV under the title of 'I Can Make You Love Me; The Stalking of Laura Black', and being haunted by how accurate it was, I was thrilled to see it again. Richard Thomas brilliantly plays the computer engineer Richard Farley (though he looks nothing like the real Richard Farley); cunning, fiendish and genuinely chilling. For those who remember Thomas as 'John-Boy' on 'The Waltons', his performance will shatter that wholesome image. Brooke Shields is quite effective as Laura Black, the new computer engineer working at Farley's firm who fights back against his relentless harassment. The actors who play Chris (her supervisor at KEI) and Lt. Grijalva (hostage negotiator) are also effective. Having read about the true story of Farley & Black, I can say with some confidence that the movie is extremely close to the facts of the true story. Richard Farley finds out EVERY detail of Laura's life, right down to the locations of her parents & sisters, then threatens to harm them should Laura continue to ignore him. Farley is eventually fired by KEI for his continual harassment & decrease in productivity. But even THAT does not stop him - he continues his chilling pursuit of Laura by showing up in her garage, at her work, following her when she is dating another man, and, most chillingly - returns for a final time to KEI to carry out a horrifying massacre. It will end with 7 KEI employees dead, SWATs called in to stop the assault, and Farley awaiting a death sentence at San Quentin. Probably one of the finest TV movies ever produced in the 1990s."

I was there

Alexander | CA | 04/26/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was employed at the same company, ESL, and worked in the same building, M5, as Laura Black. Fortunately for me, I quit the company the day before the shootings took place. Although I worked in the same building and on the same floor, I was not in the same group as Laura. Although I do remember her - she was an attractive young woman.

From all that I know about the actual event the movie is, for the most part, very accurate in both the overall story and also in the details. It seemed particularly accurate in many of the particulars: Farley shooting his first victim at the entrance to the building, Farley shooting many computer terminals, the Togo's #26, Laura being on the 2nd story of a two story building, the restraining order, and many more details.

But there is one area where the movie does not follow what really happened. In the movie Richard Farley is portrayed as a valuable engineer with reasonable physical attractiveness. In reality, Farley was a technician (not a college graduate position), was substantially older than Black, and was not very attractive physically - you can see his picture on Wikipedia. It is not clear to me why the people who made this movie made this change to the story. My best guess is that it allowed the development of the scenes where the HR person at KEI (ESL) implied that Laura shared some of the blame for Farley's advances. In reality it would have been very hard to believe that Laura shared any blame for the situation. Because of this deviation from reality, I am more skeptical that scenes with HR are accurate (of course I don't know the truth here). Also, Laura went back to ESL after she recovered and worked there for years. This indicates that she did not have animosity towards the company which implies that HR did not behave as portrayed in the movie.

Despite these changes which appear to be made to build the drama, I think the movie was a very good portrayal of a very unfortunate event.
"

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