Category Archives: Horror

Homebodies (1974)

Posted on October 7, 2015 | 3 comments

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Old people become killers.

Senior citizens living in a rundown apartment building are shocked to learn that they will be evicted so that their place can be torn down and turned into an office complex. They resist the move and devise a scheme in which they will create ‘accidents’ at the construction site that will cause fatalities and hopefully impede the building process. They even do away with the project developer (Douglas Fowley) by drowning him in hardening cement, but then one of them, Mrs. Loomis, (Ruth McDevitt) begins to suffer from a guilty conscience. She considers going to the authorities, but the others try to stop her, which soon creates deceit and murder from within the group.

Shot on-location in Cincinnati the film has a neat offbeat concept, but it’s unable to execute it to its full potential. It tries too hard to mix in too many different story elements and shifts awkwardly between drama, dark comedy, horror and even social commentary. The result is a mixed bag that never gets off the ground. There are a few interesting moments, but the first half is slow and barely seems like a horror movie at all.

Part of the problem is that the deaths aren’t novel. Outside of the one where Fowley gets submerged in cement the rest are run-of-the-mill. We never see how the seniors are able to create the ‘accidents’ at the construction site and it seemed hard to believe that they would’ve been agile enough to get around inside a dark building, late at night to set up the booby traps to begin with. It would’ve been fun had the killings been caused by using items connected with old age like bashing the victims over the head with a cane, running them down with a walker, or forcing them to swallow a bottle of Geritol. The filmmakers work hard to create sympathy for the seniors, but portraying them as creepy, scary and threatening would’ve made it more edgy.

Paula Truman is good in the lead as well as Ruth McDevitt as the granny with mixed emotions. Fowley though is a bore as the heavy as his caricature of a brash, ego-driven developer is too one-dimensional and he looks just as elderly as the rest of the cast. Hiring a much younger actor to play the part would’ve created more of an interesting contrast.

Larry Yust’s direction is competent and helps keep the proceedings palatable, but as a whole it’s undercooked and undeserving of the cult classic status that they were clearly hoping for.

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My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 29, 1974

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Larry Yust

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Horror, Low Budget, Obscure Movies, Offbeat

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Eyes of a Stranger (1981)

Posted on October 5, 2015 | Leave a comment

eyes of a stranger

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: News reporter stalks killer.

Jane Harris (Lauren Tewes) is a Miami TV-news reporter who takes a special interest in a local story involving a serial rapist/killer in the area since her younger sister Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) was attacked years earlier that left her without the ability to see, hear, or speak. She starts to suspect that the killer may actually be her neighbor (John DiSanti) who lives in an apartment across the courtyard from hers. She begins sneaking into his apartment when he is away in order to collect evidence unaware that the man has already set his sights on Tracy.

The story was originally conceived as a thriller and the Rear Window-like element adds some interest, but the tension is ruined when it takes out the mystery angle completely by making it quite clear early on who the killer is. The silly gory effects by Tom Savini aren’t up to his usual standard and pretty sparse. The scene where a victim’s head is chopped off his body like a cork popping out of a wine bottle with only one swing of a meat clever looks quite fake. The idea that a killer would    be able to sneak up behind a victim without them ever knowing, which is a common trait in ‘80s slasher films, is also hard to believe as I think most anyone can sense when someone is right behind them without actually having to see them.

Tewes, who is better known for playing Julie McCoy on the long running TV-series ‘The Love Boat’ does an okay job even though she’s never starred in a film since. Leigh, whose first major film role this was, also does well despite the extreme limitations of her part. The only issue that I had with the casting is with the children who were hired to play the women when they were younger during the flashback sequences. Both girls look nothing like their adult counterpart and in the case of Amy Krug who plays Tewes as child she doesn’t even have her same color of eyes.

The motivations of the characters are another issue. In the case of the killer he discards the body of one of his victims along beach, but then gets his car stuck in the sand. A man who was making out with his girlfriend nearby offers to help, but instead of accepting it he kills him, which makes little sense. Some may argue that he stabbed them because he didn’t want to be identified later, but if that was the case then why not at least accept their assistance and then kill them as someone at some point was going to have to offer him a hand and it’s never made clear how eventually he manages to get his car out.

The Tewes character acts equally stupid including when she makes anonymous phone calls to the killer without attempting to disguise her voice even though she is this famous news lady heard all over the city.  She also busily breaks into the bad guy’s apartment twice looking for evidence, but then doesn’t bother to take his blood soaked shirt that she sees him stuff in a parking lot trash can, which could’ve easily connected him to his last victim.

Spoiler Alert!

The film manages to be marginally gripping despite some agonizingly prolonged sequences involving watching the victims slowly become aware that they are being stalked before predictably and routinely getting offed. The segment at the end though where Leigh’s character ‘miraculously’ regains her sight and speech while she’s being attacked after losing it during her previous encounter with a rapist is pure corn and something that happens only in movieland and nowhere else.

End of Spoiler Alert!

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 27, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 25Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ken Weiderhorn

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Movies that take place in Florida, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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A Bell from Hell (1973)

Posted on October 3, 2015 | 1 comment

bell from hell

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: A psycho returns home.

After being locked up for years in an insane asylum Juan (Renaud Verley) is released and allowed to return home to his wheelchair bound mother Marta (Viveca Lindfors) and three sisters who had him put away in an attempt to get at his inheritance. Now Juan wants revenge and does so by trying to have his mother stung to death by a horde of angry bees and his sisters cut up at a meat processing plant, but both of his attempts fail. They survive and turn-the-tables by having him encased alive at the local church’s bell tower that is being erected, but just when they think he’s dead they find that he may not be.

This film’s most notorious claim to fame is that its young director Claudio Guerin fell to his death from the very bell tower he had constructed for the movie on the last day of shooting, which is a shame since he showed strong potential for being a gifted filmmaker. If there is one thing that holds it all together and keeps it captivating it’s with its visual quality. Despite the limited budget Guerin shows a keen eye for an array of interesting camera angles and shots. The atmosphere is thick and remains creepy throughout even though it doesn’t have any actual scares.

Unfortunately the script by Santiago Moncada lacks the same type of creativity with a cliché-ridden storyline that meanders and at times feels like it’s going nowhere. The muffled English dubbing makes it hard to hear all of the words that the characters are saying and the ending plays like a tired rehashing of an Edgar Allan Poe story that provides no surprises.

The film’s most provocative moment is when Juan kidnaps his sisters and hangs them naked on meat hooks at the processing plant, which is filled with imaginative close-ups and edits and a major precursor to the so-called ‘horror porn’ that we’ve become used to today. However, the film doesn’t go far enough with it and pulls back after an interesting set-up, which becomes a testament to the production as a whole that has great potential, but only mediocre results.

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My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 1, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Claudio Guerin

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Low Budget, Moody/Stylish, Movies with Nudity

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Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Posted on August 2, 2015 | 1 comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Worst movie ever made.

Husband and father Michael (played by the film’s writer/director Harold P. Warren) takes his wife Margaret (Diane Adelson) and their young daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman) on a trip. Along the way they become lost in the middle of the west Texas desert and after driving around for hours finally come upon an isolated building in the middle of nowhere. Standing guard outside is a strange man named Torgo (John Reynolds) who invites them inside. Feeling they have no choice the family agrees to go in unbeknownst that the place is managed by an evil devil worshipping man known as The Master (Tom Neyman) who is already married to six wives and looking to add another to his ‘flock’.

This film came about as a bet between insurance salesman Warren and award winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant who was in the El Paso, Texas area scouting locations for his next movie. Warren met him by chance at a local café and then proceeded to tell him that ‘anyone’ could make a movie and bet him that he could successfully do one without having any prior experience or budget. Warren even wrote the majority of the film’s screenplay on his napkin at the restaurant before the two had even left. He was then able to secure $19,000, which even for the time period wasn’t very much as well as a hand-held camera that could only shoot 32 seconds worth of film at a time. He rounded up some actors from a local theater for the cast and unable to pay them upfront promised that they would receive reimbursement for their efforts once the film was released and made a profit, which never happened.

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The result of all of this is a film that many critics and viewers consider to be the worst ever made. The film’s biggest problem is that there was no sound recorded during the filming and it all had to be dubbed in later causing it to come off like a silent movie with music used throughout the whole thing in order to help ‘narrate’ the mood and scene much of which is jazz sounding that doesn’t really connect with the horror genre to begin with. The takes go on waaaay longer than they should including a long stretch at the beginning where we see nothing but passing scenery of a barren Texas landscape that goes on endlessly.

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The filmed bombed upon its initial release and was only seen at a few theaters in the El Paso area before being forgotten completely. When Jackey Neyman attended collage during the early 80’s and told friends that she had at one point been in a film as a child her friends set out to find a copy and were unable to. It wasn’t until 1993 when this film was shown on an episode of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ that it garnered the cult following that is has now including a Blu-ray release that is set to come out on October 13th of the this year that will have as a bonus not one, but three featurettes included, which I guess proves that these days bad is now the new good.

For my part I liked the general premise, which if put in more competent hands and with a better budget might’ve been interesting. I also enjoyed Adelson as the wife who is beautiful and went on to have a career as a model. The twist ending is also kind of neat, but without some sort of rifftax attached this otherwise boring thing is not worth catching.

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My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: November 5, 1966

Runtime: 1Hour 14Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Harold P. Warren

Studio: Emerson Film Enterprises

Available: DVD, Blu-ray (Release date October 13, 2015)

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Posted in 60's Movies, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Movies that take place in Texas, Movies with a rural setting

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Wild Beasts (1984)

Posted on July 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Animals attack innocent people.

The water of a major metropolitan area becomes contaminated from all the garbage littered along the beaches. The animals of a local zoo drink it and soon go on a rampage. When the zoo’s security system fails the animals get out and start to attack the local citizens. Animal expert Laura Schwartz (Lorraine De Selle) and zookeeper Rupert (John Aldrich) work together to stop the carnage by tracking the animals down and corralling them back to safety.

The film was directed by Franco Prosperi who along with Gualtiero Jacopetti where noted for their quasi shockumentaries of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s that emphasized a lot of violence and nudity and this production works along the same vein. In fact it’s the graphic gore and a camera that lingers on the carnage that helps the film stand out from the rest of the tacky, low budget horror films from the ‘80’s. However, the film also shows a lot of animal cruelty including a mother tiger going into violent convulsions after being put to sleep and rats screaming in pain after being set on fire.

The attacks themselves become quite mechanical and monotonous. The main characters are wooden and seen only in brief intervals, so the viewer never becomes emotionally attached to anyone on screen, which seriously lowers the tension. The film actually only becomes interesting at the end when some children staying at a school drink the water and then become violent towards the adults, which has a nice creepy quality to it and the movie would’ve been better had it chosen this story thread over the other one.

The idea that showing all these discarded heroin needles along the beach and implying that this would be enough to contaminate the city’s water supply is lame and the film’s ‘important’ message about pollution is silly as well. There is also no explanation why none of the adults go crazy like the animals and some of the children do as they would presumably be drinking the same water. The opening sequence shows shots of Seattle where this story supposedly takes place, but the rest of the film was clearly shot in a European city. The production suffers from being convoluted and overblown and lacking any singular vision, which is due in large part to being financed by backers from several different countries.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: February 15, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Franco Prosperi

Studio: Shumba International Corporation

Available: VHS, DVD (Region 2)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Exploitation, Foreign Films, Horror, Italian Films, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Slasher/Gore

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Elves (1989)

Posted on December 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

elves 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: This elf isn’t friendly.

Kirsten (Julie Austin) feels Christmas has become too commercialized and dreads the season only to find out something that will make her hate it even worse as her evil Grandfather (Borah Silver) who has Nazi ties has apparently selected her to breed with an elf in order to create a superior human race. Now she must work with Mike McGavin (Dan Haggerty) an out of work department store Santa to not only evade her grandfather and his men, but also the elf that now runs wild.

Despite the title there is actually only one elf and it’s not a very good looking one at that. Not only does his appearance resemble the character in Troll, but you never actually get to see an entire body shot of him. You will only see close-up shots from the chest up or close-ups of his tiny feet or hands that look to be that of a puppets. This was most likely because they didn’t have the budget or talent to create a full body suit for someone to wear, but the effect lessens the horror, which isn’t too high to begin with. His hands are so tiny that it would have been impossible for him to shoot a gun let alone hold one, which he does do in one scene anyways, and it also gave me the belief that with his small stature he couldn’t have been that threatening and one could’ve easily just have kicked him away and been done with it.

Haggerty, who most will remember from the 70’s TV-series Life and Times of Grizzly Adams actually does pretty good in an otherwise thankless part. I almost felt that if he would just do away with his trademark mountain man look more parts might open up for him and he wouldn’t be subjugated to having to do this crap, but in any event his presence is the only reason I’m giving this 1 point instead of 0. The rest of the cast flunks including the bad guys with their fake sounding German accents and the bland females with the only exception being Deanna Lund as the hateful mother who has a nude scene, which isn’t bad.

The story is farfetched, convoluted and ultimately boring. The special effects are unimpressive and the action poorly paced leaving way for long intervals where nothing seems to happen. It looks like it was shot on video and then transferred to film, which only accentuates its cheap production values. Outside of a pretty good bathtub death and a shot of an elf fetus inside the womb this film as little to offer or recommend and should not be put on anyone’s Christmas list unless they’ve been really, really bad.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released Date: December 10, 1989

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Jeffrey Mandel

Studio: Action International Pictures

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Christmas Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Slasher/Gore

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Blood Freak (1972)

Posted on November 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

blood freak1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Man becomes a turkey.

Herschell (Steve Hawkes) attends a hippie drug party where he meets two sisters whose father owns a turkey farm that is run by two scientists who do experiments there. Since he is short on cash he decides to take part in some of these experiments for extra money. However, he is unaware of just how dangerous these tests are and when he eats a turkey he suddenly goes into convulsions before growing a giant turkey head. He then roams the city streets looking for unsuspecting victims who he then takes back to a warehouse and kills while drinking their blood in hopes that it will somehow turn him back into human form.

Even with the massively low budget that was financed mainly by the director and star this is still a big mess with a story that seems to have no focus. It starts out as a drama on the evils of drug use then works into a romance only to shift into a gory slasher film and then end again on a romantic note. In between director Brad F. Grinter, who apparently likens himself to Rod Serling, comes on screen for some pseudo philosophical bibble-babble as well as preaching against the evils of drugs all while smoking a cigarette and in one funny moment going through a bout of smoker’s cough.

The special effects are surprisingly not too bad. The part where a man gets his leg cut off with a table saw is genuinely gory and explicit and watching the blood spray out of the victims like water from a hose is freaky . It even has a nasty scene of showing a live turkey getting beheaded while its headless body flutters around.

The acting is uniformly atrocious and quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen. The turkey head worn by Hawkes looks dumber than a tacky Halloween mask and it does pose the question as to why just his head changes while the rest of his body remains human. This is most likely because the budget didn’t allow for a turkey body suit, but it still creates a logic loophole in a film that is already full of them.

Watch only if you are with a group of friends who will then spend the whole time making fun of it as that is the only entertainment value you’ll get from viewing it.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: February 13, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 21Minutes

Rated X

Director: Brad F. Grinter

Studio: Variety Films

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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Suspiria (1977)

Posted on October 31, 2014 | 6 comments

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ballet dancer battles witches.

Suzy (Jessica Harper) is an American from New York who aspires to be a ballet dancer and travels to Freiburg, Germany to enroll at the dancer academy there. When she arrives she confronts another young lady who shouts something about a ‘blue iris flower’ before running out into the stormy night and then later turning up murdered. As the days progress strange events begin to occur convincing Suzy that the dance school may really be a cover for a coven of witches.

I first saw this film back in the late 80’s and it left me cold, but after reading a few other movie blogs where the critics insisted this was ‘brilliant’ I decided to give it another chance and approached it with a completely open mind only to end up liking it even less. The majority of the problem is Dario Argento’s over-direction. The sets and color schemes are wildly over-the-top bordering on camp. Had he pulled back even a little it might have been visually impressive, but instead gets obnoxious. The atmosphere, like everything else, is overdone creating a dream-like fantasy feel that has no connection to reality and therefore not very compelling.

The music, which was done by a group called Goblin, is interesting to some extent. I like the effect that to me sounded like hissing demons, but the other parts of it too closely resembled the ‘Tubular Bells’ music that was used in The Exorcist. It also gets overplayed and is too loud coming off like a spoiled child demanding your attention, which creates less tension and more distraction instead.

The special effects don’t live up to billing. When a man gets attacked and then eaten by his own dog is the only good part simply because it’s unexpected. Otherwise the blood and gore is average and even lacking. The majority of it is at the beginning where we see a young, frightened woman squirmy around on the floor while she gets stabbed and to a degree looks like some interpretive dance routine. The shot of a body coming out of a ceiling and then hung from a rope doesn’t work because it is clearly a mannequin and if you look real closely her face already has a strangled expression on it before the head goes through the noose.

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Harper is a good protagonist and its fun seeing classic film star Joan Bennett in her last film role. I also really liked Alida Valli as Miss Tanner the dance instructor. During the 40’s and 50’s she was a stunningly beautiful leading lady, but here looks very witchy with the way her hair is cropped up into a tight bun as well as with her eyes and voice. The rest of the supporting cast have their voices dubbed, something that Italian productions during this period were notorious for and gives the already wooden dialogue a cheesy, amateurish sounding banter.

Spoiler Alert!

The climactic finish is a big letdown. For such an extravagant, garish build-up I was expecting much more of a bloody, drawn-out battle. Instead Harper just picks up a sharp object and stabs the head witch, who looks dead already, and it immediately kills her along with the others, but to me this didn’t make sense. This is supposedly some otherworldly demon, so the same laws of physics wouldn’t necessarily apply to her like it does to humans and a simple stab wound wouldn’t have the same effect like it would to regular people.

End of Spoiler Alert!

I was glad to see that other viewers on IMDB particularly those on the message board felt the same way about this ‘classic’ as I did. In my opinion the only way to enjoy it is for its excessive camp value and nothing more.

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My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 1, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 38Minutes (Blue Underground 2-Disc Special Edition)

Rated R (Originally rated X)

Director: Dario Argento

Studio: International Classics (Dubbed Version)

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray

6 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Italian Films, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Slasher/Gore

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The Sentinel (1977)

Posted on October 28, 2014 | 4 comments

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The Gateway to Hell.

Alison (Cristina Raines) is a fashion model looking for a place of her own. She is dating Michael (Chris Sarandon) and living with him, but has decided she is not ready for marriage and wants her own apartment. She finds an old, but stylish place in the Brooklyn Heights area of New York City that is already furnished and decides to move in, but then strange things begin to occur convincing her that the place may be haunted and when she starts to have physical maladies she is sure that something within the building is trying to possess her and the other residents she sees are really evil demons.

From the very first scene still film reeks of being just another, tired rip-off of The Exorcist. The first hour features no real scares and it is only during the second part that it becomes a full-fledged horror movie giving the film an overall disjointed feel. The much hyped final, which features severely deformed people who are not wearing make-up isn’t that impressive and unable to equal any of today’s horror movies. If anything I wished they had played this part up even more as it is the only time this otherwise generic thing gets even slightly diverting.

Rains, who by her own admission has never ever actually watched the movie, makes for a weak lead. Sure she is beautiful, but the character is dull and ordinary and she gets easily upstaged by co-star Sarandon who clearly shows how to carry a scene and deserves top billing over her for that reason alone. Her characters motivations didn’t make much sense either. Why would such a young woman want to move into a place filled with antique furniture and inhabited by senior citizens that she has nothing in common with? Also, when creepy things start to occur she doesn’t just move out right away like a normal person would, but instead goes back to the place several more times. There is also a moment when she hears strange noises from the upstairs apartment and then gets out of her bed and locks her front door, which seemed crazy because she is living in New York City and should be locking her doors ALL the time to begin with.

The only real interesting thing about this film for me was seeing older stars at the end of their careers in bit parts. Ava Gardner is fun as the leasing agent and Arthur Kennedy is solid as a mysterious priest as well as John Carradine as an older blind priest who lives upstairs and wearing creepy contacts. There is also Sylvia Miles who appears topless and camps it up as a lesbian neighbor with a Russian accent at least I think it was Russian. Christopher Walken can be seen briefly as a detective giving his gum a workout and Beverly D’Angelo plays a nubile lesbian who doesn’t say a single word, but more than makes up for it with her masturbation scene.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 7, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Winner

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Gay/Lesbian, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity

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He Knows You’re Alone (1980)

Posted on October 27, 2014 | 1 comment

he knows youre alone

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer goes after brides.

Amy (Catlin O’Heaney) is getting ready to get married, but finds herself stalked by a mysterious stranger (Tom Rolfing). She begins to worry that she may fall victim to a psycho that has been murdering women who have been engaged to marry. Detective Gamble (Lewis Arlt) whose own fiancé was murdered at the hands of this same maniac goes on a relentless quest to stop the attacker, but will it be too late?

The film starts out well and has early hints of Scream where we see an audience viewing a reenactment of an urban legend on a theater screen while one of the women in the audience gets killed by the psycho at the same time, which I found to be quite clever. Unfortunately it goes completely downhill afterwards and never recovers. Lots of slow scenes filled with extraneous dialogue and characters that add nothing to the suspense.  Most horror films quicken the pace as it gets nearer to the end, but this one doesn’t making the tension almost non-existent.

The identity of the killer is another issue. We are shown his face right up front, which hurts because usually with these things the killer’s true identity is kept a secret until the end, which adds to the entertainment. I also thought it was ridiculous to believe that a man murders one woman because she broke up with him and decided to marry someone else, but then robotically decides to murder every other bride he finds. I wanted more of a backstory to the character and felt one was sorely needed. It also seemed implausible that the police would be clueless as to who it is as when the first bride died they would most assuredly interview her ex-boyfriends, which is standard procedure and had this guy locked up or closely monitored long before things spiraled so out-of-control.

The special effects are minimal and in fact there is barely any blood at all as everything is implied. We see one severed head in a fish tank, but otherwise the camera cuts away before anyone is shown getting stabbed or killed.

O’Heaney is transparent in the lead and isn’t even all that cute. Arlt as the dogged detective isn’t much better. It’s fun seeing Tom Hanks, who appears at the 59-minute mark, in his film debut. James Rebhorn can also be seen here in an early film role with a full head of hair playing a college professor who cheats on his wife with one of his students. You can spot Paul Gleason in a bit part as one of the detectives as well as Robin Lamont during the opening sequence who is best remembered for her rendition of ‘Day by Day’ in both the stage and film version of Godspell.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: September 12, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated R

Director: Armand Mastroianni

Studio: MGM

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Horror, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Slasher/Gore

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