`Common Bonds,' A Canadian Award Winner, Goes Right To Video

Acouple of sequels, a Canadian award nominee and two spin-offs of "Dead Ringers" lead this month's list of straight-to-video releases.

The Genies, the Canadian version of the Oscars, honored "Common Bonds" (due May 28) with four nominations last year, including best picture and actor (Brad Dourif). He plays a disabled patient who teams up with a violent convict to defeat a common enemy. Rae Dawn Chong and Michael Ironside are in the cast, and Ironside worked on the script with Alan Aylward.

Ironside played the villain who developed a terminal headache at the end of David Cronenberg's original "Scanners," but he doesn't appear in the latest R-rated sequel, "Scanners III: The Takeover" (due May 13), which is far removed from its source. Variety called this thriller about sibling rivalry "a rather comic chapter in the trilogy. . . . Violence is less graphic and more creative than in the previous outing." It was directed by Christian Duguay, who also made "Scanners II."

Another sequel to a Canadian horror film, "Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil" (May 13), stars Joy Tanner and Alden Kane as teenagers who live to regret their decision to take over a summer house that used to be a monastery. "Seedpeople" (May 28) is also a horror spin-off, a variation on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" produced by the creators of the "Puppetmaster" series.

Like Jeremy Irons in Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers," Aidan Quinn and Stephanie Kramer get to exercise their acting muscles by playing siblings who seem identical in "Lies of the Twins" (due Tuesday) and "Twin Sisters" (coming May 20).

In the former, Isabella Rossellini plays a model who has an affair with her therapist (Quinn) and then becomes attracted to his twin brother. Directed by Tim Hunter ("Tex," "River's Edge") it won praise from the Hollywood Reporter as "a very fresh and satisfying package."

In "Twin Sisters," Kramer impersonates her sister when her twin disappears. Frederic Forrest is the detective who helps her, and James Brolin is the estranged husband of one of the twins. Kramer is best-known for her television roles in "Hunter" and "Favorite Son."

Also bypassing theaters this month:

"Deadly Descent" (in stores now). Rita Coolidge makes a guest appearance in this skiing movie directed by and starring Damian Lee as an obsessive photographer. The music is by Carole King, Boz Scaggs and Tangerine Dream.

"Collision Course" (Wednesday). Pat Morita and Jay Leno team up for this cop-buddy movie about Japanese and Detroit detectives.

"24 Hours to Midnight" (Wednesday). A new martial-arts vehicle for Cynthia Rothrock ("China O'Brien").

"Maniac Warriors" (Wednesday). More martial-arts stuff, set in a futuristic Idaho and starring TomSchioler and Melanie Kilgour.

"The Divine Enforcer" (Wednesday). Erik Estrada, JanMichael Vincent, Jim Brown and Don

Stroud in a story about a Los Angeles priest who's also a martial-arts expert.

"Prey of the Chameleon" (Wednesday). Daphne Zuniga, star of "The Sure Thing" and "Gross Anatomy," stars as an escaped mental patient who becomes a deadly hitchhiker. She befriends her intended victims, then kills them and assumes their physical identities.

"Secret Games" (May 13). Marital drama starring Martin Hewitt, Michele Brin, Delia Sheppard and Billy Drago.

"Original Intent" (May 13). A PG-rated drama about a successful lawyer who jeopardizes his business and family when he decides to defend the interests of a homeless shelter. With Candy Clark, Martin Sheen, Kris Kristofferson, Cindy Pickett, Vince Edwards.

"The Light in the Jungle" (May 13). African medical drama starring Malcolm McDowell as Albert Schweitzer. With Susan Strasberg and Andrew Davis.

"Sunset Strip" (May 14). Soft-core striptease movie about a young dancer (Michelle Forman) who starts working for a popular Sunset Strip club. Jeff Conaway plays her boyfriend.

"George's Island" (May 14). A PG-rated Canadian adventure film set in Nova Scotia and starring Ian Bannen, Sheila McCarthy and 10-year-old Nathaniel Moreau. It's about a child's obsessions with pirate and ghost legends.

"Termini Station" (May 20). A 1989 road movie starring Megan Follows and the late Colleen Dewhurst of "Anne of Green Gables."

"Talkin' Dirty After Dark" (May 20). A 1991 farce about a black comedy club in South Central Los Angeles, starring several stand-up comedians, including Martin Lawrence, Phyllis Stickney and John Witherspoon.

Video Watch by John Hartl appears Sundays in Arts & Entertainment. You can get more video information by calling the Seattle Times' 24-hour free service Infoline. Call 464-2000 from any touch-tone telephone and when instructed, enter the category number 0911 to reach the Video Hotline. You may replay all information by pressing "R" (7); back up to previous information by pressing "B" (2); and jump over over current information by pressing "J" (5).

--------------------------------------- NEW VIDEOS IN STORES THIS WEEK -----------------------------------------

Tuesday - "Clowning Around," "The Haunting of Barney Palmer," "Konrad," "Lone Star Kid," "Frogs!", Carmen Zapata in "Daniel and the Towers," Robert Guillaume in "You Must Remember This."

Wednesday - Alan Parker's "The Commitments," Tom Berenger in "At Play in the Fields of the Lord," Aidan Quinn in "Lies of the Twins," Pat Morita in "Collision Course," Natalie Wood in "Inside Daisy Clover," Bette Davis in "Dead Ringer," Katharine Hepburn in "The Corn Is Green," William Holden in "Fedora," Jack Hawkins in "Land of the Pharaohs," Danny Kaye in "The Madwoman of Chaillot," Henry Fonda in "Sex and the Single Girl," Bette Davis in "The Star," Mick Jagger in "Freejack," Cynthia Rothrock in "24 Hours to Midnight," Tom Schioler in "Maniac Warriors," John Wayne in "Operation Pacific," James Garner in "Up Periscope."

Thursday - Pamela Reed in "Rachel River," Jose Ferrer in "Old Explorers," Erik Estrada in "The Divine Enforcer," Daphne Zuniga in "Prey of the Chameleon," Kathleen Turner reads "Rumpelstiltskin," Claude Chabrol's "Les Biches," "The Reincarnation of Golden Lotus," Pierre Richard in "The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe" and "The Return of the Tall Blond Man," "We All Have Tales," "Koi and the Kola Nuts," "Country Gold (Vol. 1)."

Friday - Kid N Play in "House Party 2."

New laserdiscs: William Hurt in "The Doctor," John Goodman in "Barton Fink," Jean Peters in "Three Coins in the Fountain" (letterboxed), Chris Cooper in "Thousand Pieces of Gold," Brad Dourif in "Horseplayer," "The Republic Pictures Story," Gabriel Byrne in "A Soldier's Tale," "The Dawn of Sound," "The Al Jolson Collection," John Wayne in "Angel and the Badman," Wes Craven's "The People Under the Stairs," Jack Lemmon in "The Front Page," Bob Hope in "Sorrowful Jones," "The Divine Garbo," "Roads to the South."