HOME |  CULT MOVIES | COMPETITIONS | ADVERTISE |  CONTACT US |  ABOUT US
 
 
 
Newest Reviews
American Fiction
Poor Things
Thunderclap
Zeiram
Legend of the Bat
Party Line
Night Fright
Pacha, Le
Kimi
Assemble Insert
Venus Tear Diamond, The
Promare
Beauty's Evil Roses, The
Free Guy
Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure
Rejuvenator, The
Who Fears the Devil?
Guignolo, Le
Batman, The
Land of Many Perfumes
Cat vs. Rat
Tom & Jerry: The Movie
Naked Violence
Joyeuses Pacques
Strangeness, The
How I Became a Superhero
Golden Nun
Incident at Phantom Hill
Winterhawk
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Maigret Sets a Trap
B.N.A.
Hell's Wind Staff, The
Topo Gigio and the Missile War
Battant, Le
Penguin Highway
Cazadore de Demonios
Snatchers
Imperial Swordsman
Foxtrap
   
 
Newest Articles
3 From Arrow Player: Sweet Sugar, Girls Nite Out and Manhattan Baby
Little Cat Feat: Stephen King's Cat's Eye on 4K UHD
La Violence: Dobermann at 25
Serious Comedy: The Wrong Arm of the Law on Blu-ray
DC Showcase: Constantine - The House of Mystery and More on Blu-ray
Monster Fun: Three Monster Tales of Sci-Fi Terror on Blu-ray
State of the 70s: Play for Today Volume 3 on Blu-ray
The Movie Damned: Cursed Films II on Shudder
The Dead of Night: In Cold Blood on Blu-ray
Suave and Sophisticated: The Persuaders! Take 50 on Blu-ray
Your Rules are Really Beginning to Annoy Me: Escape from L.A. on 4K UHD
A Woman's Viewfinder: The Camera is Ours on DVD
Chaplin's Silent Pursuit: Modern Times on Blu-ray
The Ecstasy of Cosmic Boredom: Dark Star on Arrow
A Frosty Reception: South and The Great White Silence on Blu-ray
You'll Never Guess Which is Sammo: Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon on Blu-ray
Two Christopher Miles Shorts: The Six-Sided Triangle/Rhythm 'n' Greens on Blu-ray
Not So Permissive: The Lovers! on Blu-ray
Uncomfortable Truths: Three Shorts by Andrea Arnold on MUBI
The Call of Nostalgia: Ghostbusters Afterlife on Blu-ray
Moon Night - Space 1999: Super Space Theater on Blu-ray
Super Sammo: Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son on Blu-ray
Sex vs Violence: In the Realm of the Senses on Blu-ray
What's So Funny About Brit Horror? Vampira and Bloodbath at the House of Death on Arrow
Keeping the Beatles Alive: Get Back
   
 
  Out of the Dark Clowning Around
Year: 1988
Director: Michael Schroeder
Stars: Cameron Dye, Karen Black, Bud Cort, Lynn Danielson, Starr Andreeff, Divine, Geoffrey Lewis, Tracey Walter, Karen Mayo-Chandler, Silvana Gallardo, Karen Lorre, Angela Robinson, Lainie Kazan, Tab Hunter, Paul Bartel
Genre: HorrorBuy from Amazon
Rating:  6 (from 1 vote)
Review: Suite Nothings is a phone sex business where lonely and frustrated men can call up and listen to a woman talk dirty to them for five minutes for a fee. It's not the greatest of jobs, and among the small staff under owner Ruth Wilson (Karen Black) there is a sense of camaraderie as they wait for their big break so they can leave tawdry rent-paying occupations such as this far behind. However, there is one regular caller who has begun to worry them because he tends to turn offensive when he phones up, nothing they cannot handle but they could do without him. He calls himself Bobo, as in Bobo the Clown...

Yes, it was yet another eighties slasher flick, but this one was not as bad as that derivation might suggest, particularly at the sorry end of the decade's cycle where you would have thought every tired cliché of the genre had been hammered into the ground through repetition. This did at least have a quirky sense of humour, not that it was an out and out comedy, but it contained a self-awareness of how silly it was getting in its efforts to find something original to say in a played out storyline. Bringing out that eccentricity was a cast which included a bunch of cult faces (many of them from Lust in the Dust) and "Hey, it's that guy!" actors.

The reason those Paul Bartel movie faces appeared here was that director Michael Schroeder had been a good friend of Bartel, so you can imagine him pulling a few strings to secure the services of the likes of Geoffrey Lewis (as a drunken photographer suspect) and one scene wonders such as Lainie Kazan and Tab Hunter. But it was Divine who the film was dedicated to, as he died shortly after shooting his scenes, making Out of the Dark his final screen appearance, thus garnering it a small place in movie history, and a must-see for the one of a kind star's fans. He wasn't in it very much, and you had to wait a while before he showed up, but it was worth seeing him with a soup strainer 'tache if nothing else.

Meanwhile, we had a whodunnit to tackle, as someone is bumping off the girls who answer the phones to the possible killer. The trouble is, when he does strike (literally, as he kills one of them with a baseball bat as his first crime) he is wearing a clown mask in keeping with his nickname which makes identifying him tricky. Our main characters are model Kristi Larson (Lynn Danielson) and her photographer boyfriend Kevin Silvers (Cameron Dye), who are fighting to uncover the murderer because the detective in charge of the case, Lieutenant Frank Meyers (Tracey Walter, one of the supreme "Hey, it's that guy!" guys) is convinced Kevin is the culprit. Can these two sleuth their way to avoiding Kev's looming incarceration?

To the film's credit, even with a pool of very few possibilities for the actual offender it did keep you guessing, though that could be because the red herrings were so obvious and the finale where all was revealed was so absurd. Not in a bad way, the preposterousness of the exposure - he used to be a circus clown who had a really bad experience, apparently (!) - contributed to the amusing nature of the film, and a lot of that was down to the way the script took care to sketch in interesting characters even in the minor, one scene roles: everyone has their quirk here, be they large ones such as what suspect Bud Cort gets (you can't imagine him wearing that stuff, really - a good thing, too) or Hunter's driver noticing an accident victim is wearing a very nice watch. So when people are killed off, it's not the usual cannon fodder, because you have a bit more invested in them. Not to exaggerate the personality, this was a standard horror movie at heart, but a cut above many of its peers.
Reviewer: Graeme Clark

 

This review has been viewed 4393 time(s).

As a member you could Rate this film

 
Review Comments (0)


Untitled 1

Login
  Username:
 
  Password:
 
   
 
Forgotten your details? Enter email address in Username box and click Reminder. Your details will be emailed to you.
   

Latest Poll
Which star probably has psychic powers?
Laurence Fishburne
Nicolas Cage
Anya Taylor-Joy
Patrick Stewart
Sissy Spacek
Michelle Yeoh
Aubrey Plaza
Tom Cruise
Beatrice Dalle
Michael Ironside
   
 
   

Recent Visitors
Darren Jones
Mark Le Surf-hall
Enoch Sneed
  Louise Hackett
Andrew Pragasam
Mary Sibley
Graeme Clark
  Desbris M
   

 

Last Updated: