Karen Mayo-Chandler | Through the Shattered Lens

In 1989’s Out of the Dark, a man dressed in a clown costume is killing phone sex operators. He lurks in the darkness and jumps out of the shadows to commit his dastardly crimes. Especially during the first hour or so, the film has its share of both suspense and gruesome moments. In the style of Italian giallo and pre-Halloween American slasher pics, the film actually tries to create some mystery about who the killer could be. Lt. Frank Meyers (Tracey Walter) suspects that the killer might photographer Kevin Silvers (Cameron Dye). Kevin and his girlfriend, Kristi (Lynn Danielson-Rosenthal), think that the police should be taking a closer look at David Stringer (Bud Cort), an accountant who has an office in the same building as the phone sex company. Meanwhile, Detective Langella (Divine) thinks that the murders might be linked to a serial killer who is targeting prostitutes.

The main problem with Out of the Dark is that it’s pretty obvious from the start who the killer is and it’s hard not to judge the people who can’t figure it out for themselves. The movie doesn’t really offer up enough viable suspects to keep you guessing and than it spends so much time trying to make it look like one of the suspects is guilty that any experienced film watcher will automatically know that he isn’t. The viewers are supposed to be shocked by the killer’s identity but there’s nothing shocking about it. It’s pretty obvious.

On the plus side, Out of the Dark does have a one-of-a-kind cast. Divine and Tracy Walter play detectives. Bud Cort is intense and nerdy as the bitter accountant. Cameron Dye is vacuously handsome as the photographer. Geoffrey Lewis shows up as an alcoholic. Lainie Kazan plays an aging prostitute. Tab Hunter drives a car. Paul Bartel manages a motel and gets upset when he sees the blood pooling in one of his rooms. And finally, Karen Black plays the owner of the phone sex company and gives a far better performance than the material actually deserves. Black brings some much needed emotional reality to the film.

As I said at the start of this review, Out of the Dark has its moments. The clown costume is truly creepy and the opening murder is all the more disturbing because it happen outside and in a public park. (You do have to wonder how no one noticed a weirdo dressed like a clown wandering around.) A scene in which the clown attacks a phone sex operator who has agreed to serve as bait is also well-done and genuinely frightening. The story moves at a quick and steady pace and it deserves some credit for ending on a definitive note as opposed to trying to copy the ambiguity that was so popular with other slasher films of the era.

If only the identity of the killer had actually been a surprise, Out of the Dark would probably be considered a classic. As it is, it’s just another well-made slasher film.

Do you remember how, a few days ago, I reviewed a silly little movie called Sorority House Massacre II?

Well, it turns out that there’s a sequel and it’s on YouTube! Both films were directed by Jim Wynorski and featured pretty much the same cast, despite the fact that a few of them were playing new characters. It was released under several different titles. Hard To Die is the one that I’m going with for this review. However, the film was also known as Tower of Terror, which makes sense when you consider that the majority of the film takes place in a hi-rise office building. It was also apparently released in some places as Sorority House Massacre III, despite the fact that there’s no sorority house in the movie.

Actually, it’s debatable whether or not Hard To Die is actually a sequel. It’s true that Orville Ketchum (Peter Spellos) does make another appearance. In the first movie, Orville was the creepy neighbor. In Hard To Die, he’s the janitor at the office building. Orville tells the exact same story, with the exact same flashbacks, that he told in Sorority House Massacre II. (Those flashbacks, of course, were lifted from a totally unrelated movie called Slumber Party Massacre. There were apparently a lot of massacres in the 80s and 90s.) The evil spirit of Hockstadder returns as well, though this time he comes flying out of a box that was accidentally delivered to the office building as opposed to a Ouija board. And, of course, there’s an abundance of lingerie, awkward dialogue, and cheap gore effects. (At one point, a bucket of fake blood is literally splashed on a wall.) However, Hard To Die also tells almost exactly the same story of Sorority House Massacre II. There are so few differences that I’m actually more tempted to say that Hard To Die is a remake of Sorority House Massacre II than a sequel. The only problem with that theory is whether or not a second movie can be considered remake when the first movie literally came out the exact same year.

(One of the reasons that I love my work here at the TSL is that it allows me to obsess over minutia like this.)

Anyway, the main difference between Hard To Die and Sorority House Massacre III is that there’s no sorority house in Hard To Die. Instead, Hard To Die takes place in a lingerie shop that just happens to be located on the 7th floor of a skyscraper. The hard-working employees are spending the weekend doing inventory but it’s not going to well. For one thing, the sprinklers accidentally go off so everyone decides to take off their wet clothes, put on skimpy lingerie, and order pizza. Personally, I probably would have waited for the pizza to arrive before getting naked but then again, I’ve never worked retail or dated a pizza deliveryman.

The pizza does eventually arrive but no one gets to eat it because the deliveryperson gets set on fire and ends up falling several floors to her death. That’s a waste of good pizza, which is kind of depressing. Meanwhile, Orville keeps trying to warn everyone about Hockstadder but, instead, he keeps getting beaten up. The end credits of Hard To Die promised that the next film would be called Orville In Orbit. Apparently, it was never made but I do hope that Orville got a vacation after all of this.

Anyway, Hard To Die is an extremely silly movie but it’s just so sincere in its silliness that it feels somewhat churlish to be too critical of it. If I had to choose whether to be in Sorority House Massacre II or Hard To Die, I would probably pick Hard To Die because, at least in that movie, I’d get to shoot a machine gun. Hard To Die is so blatantly and unapologetically over the top that you can’t help but be amused by it all.