Torgo just said it is horror, and he would know!


DO avoid it ... Really savage!

I watched "Hard Candy" and "Whisper". Both were really good, so thanks again. I'm trying make my way through all of the great recommendations.

The Alfred Hitchcock movies are a pretty safe bet, IMO.

And Soon The Darkness 1970- Excellent British thriller with Pamela Franklin.

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxdiNtHlz0

I Saw What You Did 1965

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJ2GhatR0M&feature=related

Hey Torgo! Good morning! Thanks for your continued posts. I am becoming somewhat of a movie fanatic. I use a free link on my laptop now so I watch quite a few. I have a running list of your suggestions. The only problem is, I can't get some of these older movies on the link I use. Thanks again for taking the time to post!

No problem. Sadly some of these movies aren't widely available. Though sometimes Turner Classic Movies is pretty good about airing some of the older ones.

Blind Terror 1971(aka See No Evil)

Mia Farrow plays a blind woman being stalked by a killer.


Equus '77

A psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, investigates the savage blinding of six horses with a metal spike in a stable in Hampshire

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsx5wNyzmRo

The cry of the Owl (IMDb)



Virtually ignored on it's release, barely reviewed in the press, I think this is a great film that is misunderstood and unfairly misjudged. This movie is essentially a dark comedy and a bad dream rolled into one. The story, based on the novel by Highsmith, is absurd, of course it's a comedy as all Highsmith's work is essentially darkly humorous, come on, a stalker who gets stalked by his victim? The director has a very subtle touch and I think this is why so many people watching this film are lost, the film doesn't make conventional choices, it simply doesn't make it easy on the viewer that's why so many people feel confused by this movie, but in my opinion many viewers these days are unable to recognize when a film is interesting, doing something different from the norm, and this film is doing exactly that. The film has touches of Lynch, Cronenberg and the Cohens about it yet refuses to follow any of those directors paths.

You could say it is quite old fashioned, it relies heavily on mise on scene, a lost art today in most films, but to label it Hitchcockian is doing the film a great disservice because the label is too easy to apply here and the director, I believe, is well aware of the obvious comparison and is constantly playing with those notions. This is perhaps more a philosophical thriller than a psychological one and perhaps that is why it doesn't satisfy everyone, maybe the film could have benefited from a little more tension, but for me it is an intelligent dissection of the dangers of the romantic mind.

Robert wants the perfect woman, he stares at her through her window as if in a painting, but he knows the perfect woman doesn't exist, when Jenny invites Robert in the 'real' woman is exposed as being even more nuts than him. Look at what Robert says to Nickie, his ex wife, at the end, 'when I first saw you , you were like a statue, then you moved and it was all...downhill from there on in.' He's only happy with the frozen image of a woman, I believe both Jenny and Nickie's death are kind of willed by this man in some dark way, set in motion by him at the very least, the women he loves are more beautiful to him in death (as statues) than alive. At the end Robert gets what he wishes for, to be in the painting (the window) himself but always alone. Recommended only for those with a wicked sense of humour and patience.

Road Games '81: This is a great thriller penned by Everett De Roche and directed by Richard Franklin. It's like Rear Window on the highway. A truck driver(Stacy Keach) and a hitch-hiker(Jamie Lee Curtis) play cat and mouse games with a serial killer who is traveling the same stretch of highway killing young women.

Eyes of a Stranger (1981)
(IMDb)



A series of gruesome sex murders is plaguing a coastal community of Miami and the police seem to be well behind the eight ball. Jane, a local TV news reader urges viewers each time a murder happens to ring up with any sort of information to catch this killer. This really strikes a nerve with her, as her blind and deaf sister Tracy who she lives with was raped and left for dead when she was a child. Causing this traumatic condition. After some unusual coincidences, Jane starts to suspect her neighbour Stanley Herbert might be behind the murders.

After making the sorely underrated 70s horror gem "Shock Waves" (which appears in the film in a couple of shots focusing on a TV), director Ken Wiederhorn returns back to the genre with an low-budget Hitchcock inspired thriller, which to fit the trend of the times it also threw in many 80s slasher traits. While derivatively clichéd and filled with some implausible scenarios, it's still well made and actually can be creepy, suspenseful and at times a clever exercise in familiarity. The voyeuristic plot, yep it's got one. Rings true to "Rear Window (1954)" and even "Wait Until Dark (1967)". The killer's identity is brought up quite early, so there's no surprise there and through flashbacks we actually see what happened to Tracy. Which goes a long way to show how hard it hit Jane and the guilt that plagues her with her involvement in getting this predator. The characters here are capable of looking after themselves and have good judgement of common sense.

After a strong opening half and being realistically staged in parts, it then it falls away gradually and becomes the run-of-the-mill stalk and slash vehicle that simply leaves you waiting for it cracking conclusion. What little substance it generates is broken up by the ridiculously nonthreatening phone calls taunting his victims and its random acts of unpleasant violence. Make-up artist Tom Savini is the master behind the death-sequences and crafts some good effects. While, one or two moments stand out, sadly most of the scenes were off camera or were cut out. The suspenseful situation really does lose out to the basic slasher set-ups and seedy intentions of its material. Wiederhorn's tight direction is sturdily achieved and he doesn't go at a cracking pace. The grimly washed-out look of the film enhances the eerily sordid atmosphere. The moody lighting, Richard Einhorn and Red Neinkirchen's ominously alarming electronic music score and leering camera-work by Mini Rojas simply soaked up the encroaching menace of a city plagued by a vicious killer. The cast provide spot-on performances. An effectively worthy Lauren Tewes (Love Boat fame) gives it her all as the gusty TV news reader Jane and the delightfully stunning Jennifer Jason Leigh in her first major screen role plays it accordingly assured as the blind/death Tracy. Looking the part, John DiSanti's lumbering physic and unnerving attitude is rather convincing as the murderer.

It's nothing out of the ordinary and it can get contrived, but it's well-made and provides potently active lead performances.