Director: Vernon Zimmerman
Cast: Dennis Christopher, Tim Thomerson, Gwynne Gilford, Linda Kerridge
Have I Seen it Before: Never. In the middle of this year on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods—for those keeping track, it was immediately after Cat People (1982)—that I don’t make recommendations of films for us to watch for the podcast based solely on the fact that Roger Ebert liked it. For the rest of the year, this movie was staring at me as a future violation already put into the schedule, made all the worse that it was going to be our season finale.
Did I Like It: I wish I liked it more. I really do. There’s plenty to enjoy about the trappings of the film. If I could work at a film distributor warehouse like Eric Binford (Christopher), that may be all I need out of a professional life. Getting to wander around Los Angeles going to repertory screenings, and basically living without any other measurable responsibilities? Tell me that’s not what you would want, either.
And that’s where the problems being to make themselves apparent. It might be better that Binford had a psychotic break when he did in the early 80s, because one gets the sense that things could have been far worse after the advent of Digital Cinema Projection.
And things become harder to take from there. The seams can’t help but show themselves. Why does Binford dress up as Dracula—and clearly the Bela Lugosi version of the Count—to a screening of Night of the Living Dead (1968)? I mean, other than the fact that Night drifted into public domain. Not a lot of other reasons.
All of this might have been forgiven if it weren’t for the fact that a movie that is at least tangentially about how great and terrible the movies can be, the filmmaking craft on display here is distractingly sub-par. It’s pretty telling when the other notable slasher movie of that year—Friday the 13th (1980)—reaches more effectively for the Hitchcock or Carpenter level of craft that can make a slasher at all re-watchable.