‘Now he’s out there killing people and we can’t have that.’
A psychiatric patient is released back into the community too early and goes on a murderous rampage. He heads down to Florida, where he targets a specific family…
Notorious, low-budget horror from writer-director Romano Scavolini, who throws in some Giallo tropes for good measure. Brad Stafford and Sharon Smith head up the no-name cast.
George Tatum (Stafford) is an amnesiac who suffers from night terrors that bring out his psychotic tendencies. Institutionalised and diagnosed with schizophrenia, he is under the long-term care of Dr Williamson (Bill Milling). Treatment has involved behavioural modification therapy and experimental drug compounds provided by an obscure government agency represented by Man with Cigar (John L Watkins). The programme is an apparent success, and Milling allows his patient to leave the institution and rejoin society under supervision. However, Stafford goes missing before too long, and Milling has no idea of his whereabouts.
Meanwhile, in Florida, young single mother Susan Temper (Smith) is balancing looking after three children with her newly blossoming love life. Nine-year-old C.J. (C.J. Cooke) is a particular problem with his endless attention-seeking and stupid practical jokes. Fortunately, handsome, laid-back sailor Bob Rosen (Mik Cribben) seems all too willing to step into the role of a stepfather. However, Stafford is heading south toward them, having embarked on a savage murder spree, and arrives in the area with unfinished business on his mind. Cooke becomes aware that his family is being stalked, but no one will believe him due to his track record of lies and outrageous pranks.
It’s well-nigh impossible to discuss Scavolini’s film without focusing on all the controversy and uproar it caused. The early 1980s saw the explosion of a new entertainment market and a new way of digesting film: video home rental. Its impact was seismic, with stores popping up in every town centre and both legitimate and bootleg tapes flooding the market without regulation or legal oversight. Access to foreign splatter movies became of particular concern to conservative pressure groups, who, with the assistance of right-wing sections of the media, began a campaign against the so-called Video Nastys. Opportunistic politicians jumped on the bandwagon, resulting in the Video Recordings Act 1984. This law mandated that tapes offered for sale or hire had to carry an age classification from the British Board of Film Classification, like a movie shown in theatres. To supply a tape to someone ‘under-age’ was a criminal offence.
When the BBFC got hold of Scavolini’s film, it became one of the ‘poster children’ for the whole ‘Ban the Video Nasties’ movement, right up there with Abel Ferrara’s ‘Driller Killer’ (1979) and ‘SS Experiment Camp’ (1976). The film was prosecuted under the ‘Obscene Publications Act 1959’ in 1982, and over 200 tapes were seized and destroyed in police raids on stores in London and Leeds. The film was subsequently trimmed for release by the BBFC, but an uncut version surfaced in 1984, prompting the arrest of three executives from its distribution company. Two received jail time, serving six months each, although their sentences were initially longer. Although the film received a less hysterical welcome on other shores, it still displeased critics who highlighted its lack of artistic merit and gratuitous violence. Stephen Hunter of the Baltimore Sun deemed it ‘a garish atrocity, a new low in the cinema of depravity.’
Watching the film today, it’s not hard to see why it provoked such extreme reactions at the time. The first act contains some very graphic violence, complete with high levels of gore and not a lot of justification for it. It could be argued that Scavolini was consciously avoiding too much exposition in these early stages. However, the lack of plot details and coherent setup makes for a muddled opening and provokes inevitable accusations of crude exploitation. There are plot reasons why we don’t learn much about our runaway patient, but the first act is so poorly executed that many commentators on the film labour under the misapprehension that Stafford escapes from custody rather than being released. The early dialogues between Milling and Watkins seem to be heading somewhere, hinting at a secret government drug program, which seems significant. However, this amounts to nothing, and their occasional appearances in the rest of the film prove almost entirely pointless.
Aside from the violence, most of the first act involves Stafford roaming around the more sordid parts of New York, hanging around in sex clubs and attempting to grope strippers. These scenes have an almost semi-documentary feel, probably mandated by the absence of a budget and filming without permits. One scene has him drinking alone at a bar while a guy with a cowboy hat and guitar sings on a tiny stage. Likely, the bar owner received a few bucks, and the real-life customers were asked not to look at the camera. This approach does give the film a grimy, Cinéma vérité feel, predating the underground hit ‘Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’ (1984), which trod similar ground. The aesthetic also extends to Stafford’s murders, which are similarly uncompromising and, although an argument can be made for realism, again the more likely conclusion is one of crude exploitation.
With Stafford taking to the road, some semblance of a plot begins to emerge, bringing with it the slight elements of the Giallo film. Stafford is a suspect in the sexual mutilation and murder of a Brooklyn family, and his nightmares arise from repressed childhood trauma. This is a tried and tested motivation for a Giallo killer but is presented here with none of the mystery usually favoured in that arena. Here, it just plays into the predictable twist in the tale, which is so obvious it hardly deserves that description. The conclusion actuallly falls somewhere between exasperating and hilarious as Stafford continuously gets back to his feet after taking multiple bullets to the chest. John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’ (1978) has much to answer for.
Government agent Watkins (yes, he’s really billed as just ‘Man with Cigar’) does get to operate some amazing cutting-edge 1980s tech, though, and we get confirmation that even a babysitter shouldn’t take on ‘one last job.’ It’s also a bad idea for the boyfriend to pop over for some fun times on the lounge carpet. Sex followed by a joint for him, sex and a shower for her. It never ends well. There’s also a ludicrous scene where a detective has Cooke identify his best friend’s body while it’s lying on a gurney by the ambulance at the murder scene. He then proceeds to give the nine-year-old the third degree right there, in front of a whole crowd of onlookers. Correct police procedure, of course. Still, the bratty Cooke had cemented his ‘boy who cried wolf’ status earlier on by pretending to be fatally stabbed, prompting Smith and boyfriend Cribben to rush home at unsafe speeds in his car. Good luck with being his stepdad, mate!
In line with the low-rent feel of things, both acting and FX are highly variable. Some moments would have benefited from another take as both Stafford and Smith are somewhat effective at times but not at all at others. The supporting players are often quite wooden, and the child acting is very hit-and-miss. Making allowance for era and budget, the FX are a mixed bag, too, with some hitting the mark while others looking terribly fake. Marketing for the film was heavily focused on the participation of makeup FX guru Tom Savini, a legend in the horror community who had worked on many famous titles. According to Savini, he had only been on set during filming in an advisory capacity. In marked contrast, director Scavolini maintained that he had designed the makeup FX, and his denial resulted from a dispute over money. Savini threatened to sue, but there’s no record of any legal action.
Scavolini was born in 1940 in a region of Italy that is now modern-day Croatia. He began his film career in the mid-1960s, wearing several hats: writer, director and cinematographer. He fulfilled all three roles on his first notable work, ‘A mosca cieca (A Blind Fly)’ (1966), an experimental crime picture the Italian film censors rejected three times. Another thriller ‘La prova generale’ (1967), followed before he snagged an international cast, headed by Joan Collins, for shipbuilding drama ‘Lo stato d’assedio’ (1969). He hopped on the Giallo train with the ravishing ‘A White Dress for Marialé/Un bianco vestito per Marialé/Spirits of Death’ (1972), and later re-teamed with Stafford for war drama ‘Dog Tags’ (1987). He eventually went back to horror with the little-seen ‘L’apocalisse delle scimmie’ (2004).
Gorehounds and the morbidly curious might want to take a look at this, but everyone else can safely find something else to watch.