Out of the Dark (1989)

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stalking phone sex operators.

Women working at a phone sex hotline known as Sweet Nothings suddenly find themselves menaced by a strange killer wearing a clown mask. One-by-one they start turning up dead and suspicions fall on a regular caller named Bobo, but the police have a hard time tracking him down, so the remaining women take matters into their own hands.

The film starts out with potential particularly the recreation of the call center that was completely on-target and had the film remained exclusively in this setting it could’ve been engaging. I wished though that the operators hadn’t all been single as it would’ve been interesting seeing a married woman working there and how her husband adjusted to it. I also wanted to see some character arcs especially from Camille (Star Andreef) who plays a ‘newbie’ starting out in the business. It would’ve been fun having her reserved and shy at the start and then eventually gotten into it after a few days as opposed to her diving into the unique job demands without hesitation right from the start.

Karen Black as the manager of the place is good and I liked how the film analyzes her different life roles from being a single parent raising a daughter to an amusing moment where she jumps on the phone to help out another operator by playing the part of a ‘three-way’ during a sexual fantasy. Unfortunately her presence is sporadic and the film fails to have any consistent protagonist only to eventually settle on two who are so incredibly dull and generic that is just makes things worse.

Tracy Walters is boring as the detective in a tired caricature of a gruff/crude policeman that doesn’t work at all. Divine plays his male rival, but is only seen briefly during the film’s final 30 minutes when he should’ve been given the lead and if he had the movie might’ve been an interesting curio worth catching, which at this point it’s not.

The killer like everyone else in this failed experiment of a movie has no pizazz despite his creepy mask and the comical comments that he makes after he kills each of his victims are annoying. I realize a lot of slasher flicks were having their killers do this at the time, which was all the more reason why this film should’ve avoided it. Finding out his true identity is a big letdown too and there’s never any explanation as to how he’s able to be at two different places at once particularly during the scene where he is shown talking on a pay phone to one of the sex operators and then almost simultaneously appears at her home where he then strangles are.

Initially it seemed, especially with its eclectic cast, that this was going to be a horror parody and that’s how it starts out, but after the first 10 minutes it careens downhill and never recovers. Instead of being a step above the usual horror flick it actually ends up being even worse and don’t let the cast of cult stars fool you either as this is not worth catching for any reason.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 5, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Schroeder

Studio: Cinetel Films

Available: DVD-R, Amazon Video, YouTube