Visiting Hours

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1982
Country of origin:	Canada
Director:	Jean-Claude Lord
Genre:	Generic slasher
Starring:	Michael Ironside, Lee Grant, William Shatner
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083296/
Tagline:	So frightening you'll never recover.
Favourite line:	"Don't leave me. He's here. I know it!"

Little known slasher from the early eighties.

The plot:
A psychotic killer, driven by hatred of women, selects a journalist as his next victim. As a feminist, her appearance on a talk show infuriated him greatly, swelling the misogyny gland to bursting point, with only one way to vent his rage.
Attacking her, he believes her dead but, when he discovers she survived the ordeal, he traces her to her hospital bed, where he intends to finish what he started…..

Easy to see why this one slipped under the radar, as it is fairly generic stuff, but pleasant enough for a single viewing.
Applying the exact same rules of engagement as Halloween, a film this is pretty much a direct clone of, we have a crazed, almost inhuman killer driven by irrational motives, seemingly unstoppable, who, when the final showdown comes, keeps bursting back to life to continue the onslaught.
The simply gorgeous Michael Ironside, as the killer, barely says a word – which is just as it should be for slasher villains – and Lee Grant as the feminist activist does a decent job of screaming and shrieking in just the right places.
Special mention must be made of William Shatner’s presence, as a psychiatrist trying to help the increasingly irrational and terrified victim, whose performance is…well….otherworldly. This is post Trek, of course, and pre T.J. Hooker, so the hair is only about 4 inches high.
Just so you know.
Standard slasher fare, then, elevated slightly by the presence of two genuine cult legends.
Watchable.