With a title like this and a trend of mindless slashers just burgeoning in the early 80s, one might think this film would have little to offer. I was mildly pleasantly surprised how fairly well-put together the film is. The story is not all that inventive about a loose murderer who having killed at a wedding now kills girls about to be married. The opening murder in the movie theater is one of the most effective scenes in the whole film as it sets the tone for the film and, with slasher film playing during murder, firmly plants tongue in cheek making fun of itself. I can respect any film doing that at the beginning. The story then sets up with one girl in particular being preyed upon by the killer shortly before she is intended to be married(isn't that death enough?)What sets this film apart from the many clones that follow and the shorter than you might suspect list of those filmed beforehand is that this film has some talent in it. Not great talent but talent nonetheless. Armand Mastroianni does an effective job behind the camera creating some pretty chilling scenes despite having virtually no budget. His approach to filming Tom Rolfing as the murderer was a good choice; have the killer lurking but rarely ever seen fully. His presence is felt through much of the film creating tension. Nice move. The director also was very good at pacing the action in the film. The actors are all decent(with the exception of a policeman working on the case prior to the new prey - Whew! he is bad). A very young, unknown Tom Hanks has a small role, and one can see some obvious talent in his unimportant role. One flaw in the direction might be the overuse of the eye close-up of virtually everyone in the film. I cannot remember seeing so many eyeballs so close, but some of these also help aid the suspense. A little goes a long way though. Again, not a great film but an entertaining one in the sub-genre of the slasher film. It is miles ahead in almost every regard over tripe like Friday the 13th.
Review of He Knows You're Alone
