The Killing Hour - 1985

If I haven't mentioned it already, expect a massive massive amount of time between posts here.  I would say "blog over" but let's face it, I am never going to be there.  Instead, One Day I will just disappear, and you'll be left in wonder if I died or wtf is happening.

Also known as "The Clairvoyant"

Rather than go plot first, I want to explain why I liked this movie first.  First of all, good actors and likably written characters are always good.  A genuine interesting mystery is second.  Deaths, not too gruesome, but somewhat shocking and really well thought out are here too.  There is a bit of sexual hijinks going on, coupled with the fact there is nudity of men and women but not normally presented in a sexual way  Yo, guys, having nudity in your film but managing to make it unappealing: that's usually the sign of a good director.

The soundtrack is good, the shots are fine, the plotting of the thing and the pace are all decent.  Honestly, I would have a hard time finding something about this I did not like.  I didn't like how they set the main girl up with both the cop and the TV host, but that was arguably necessary and it is a very small henpeck of a note.

So plotwise, some random people are all being killed with one link, they are all murdered with handcuffs being involved.  The best kill in the movie is when a guy is swimming and his ankle gets cuffed to the bottom rung of a ladder.  It's a super chilling sequence where I legitimately wondered what would go through your mind as you decide you're going to die, struggling in bare instinct on a metal chain as you float between life and death.  It was brutal.

A cop named Weeks who sidelines as a stand up comedian is hot on the case, and TV host Mac releases to the public the knowledge this guy uses the cuffs.  Virna Nightborne is the insanely named clairvoyant who is seeing images from the kills...and no...they don't ever come close to explaining that, which I guess is a plot hole but come on.  It's a movie people.

Anyways, it gets complicated but like I said, it was super well done.  I knew it would be good when they had the cop be a comedian on the side.  And that is how we're introduced to him.  When you give your character depth?  When you write comedy that's actually decent?  When you take the time to show some of Mac's rowing regiment, but its not bland filler?  These are the small choices that make your B grade slasher/horror a 4, maybe even 4.5 star flick.  I really liked it.  I dunno.