badgrrlkane Review of He Knows You're Alone

He Knows You're Alone (1980)

Way cool 80's slasher film! Just seen it tonight after not seeing it for the past 26 yrs.

[7/10 · 19 February 2006]

I love a lot of the different ways in the 80's slasher scripts tried to differ from each other while most were the same churned out bunch of young bimbos run too slow or go into a room/building alone when they know someone's either killing everyone they know or their's a killer loose. Now, this film doesn't differ that much from the others except that it's brides to be that are being massacred & it's the first starring role for the soon to be Academy Award winner Tom Hanks! But,this one isn't that hokey,it's actually scary. i have to say after having the "beejeebus!" scared out of me when i was 7 yrs old & I saw this for the 1st time, i still when someone sit behind me in a theater I turn around & at least glance at them as the girl killed at the beginning of the film, where she's watching a cheesy horror film & as she goes to the bathroom she realizes someone's stalking her, yet she can see no one. She sits down,complains to her girl-friend, who tells her it's just the movie making her paranoid & as she's watching, very silently a man sits in back of her & as the film on screen progresses with the girl getting gutted on-screen, he pulls one of the biggest knives out in a slasher film ever& proceeds to drive it through the movie seat into the girls back, while her girl-friend thinks she's hiding her eyes,the guy just as silently leaves, while the lady screams as she realizes her friend is dead. And, I've never been able to listen to the headphone, while smoking a J by myself in a house after this horror classic, as the main girl's friend after her friend states she thinks someone's following her, after seeing some weird guy looking at her in a carnival's funhouse, & she goes to take her 12 yr old niece home, her best bud takes a shower, hears a noise, mistakes it for her imagination,gets out of the shower, walks through the kitchen, as she passes the knifes mounted on the wall, you'll notice the humongous butcher knife is missing off of the wall, after it was there in a scene 3 or 4 mins earlier. She rolls up a doob, lays back to listen to soft 80's Canadian rock (I guess??) & is so rudely interrupted as the killer grabs her hair & pulls the huge knife up to her throat! Her friend,who's the bride-to-be comes home & is greeted with the wonderful & visually frightening scene of her best girlfriend's head floating in the fish tank! Definitely, left a major impact on me now as much as when i was 7, watching it. Don't be surprised to see Hollywood after remaking all of the more popular Horror classics, winds up going for gems like this to remake. The only thing I don't like about this film, is the rush job ending with the killer, & the fact that even though the heroine survives the Wedding killer, her jilted fiancée who she leaves for the guy who rescues her from the Wedding Killer, comes to her wedding to her hero & kills her at the end of the film, or so your led to believe, which was a way to try & leave it open to a sequel,i guess ? Anyway if you haven't seen this 1980 horror gem, rent or buy it! Very good for what it is. *** out of *****