Fiend – 1980, US, 92m. Director: Don Dohler.
Nightwatch – 1994, Denmark, 107m. Director: Ole Bornedal.
Spasms – 1983, Canada, 90m. Director: William Fruet.
FIEND (1980) A malevolent spirit infects the dead body of Eric Longfellow (Don Leifert) and reanimates the man as a murderous ghoul who must kill in order to attain a youthful appearance. Longfellow moves into a house in the guise of a music teacher and turns the dank basement into a demonic altar where he shreds photos of his victims with a knife. When Longfellow’s flesh begins to decay, he drives to the local A&P to snatch a housewife and strangles her with a chain. Even children aren’t safe from Longfellow’s despicable activities, a sinister detail that gives this shoestring production a boost in the story department. Although Fiend contains the usual elements of Don Dohler ineptitude, this is one of the Baltimore filmmaker’s more accomplished films—acting and writing are strictly amateur but the characters are likable enough to sustain interest, and the screenplay is coherent enough to, at times, generate suspense. Whether the 92-minute runtime is more than enough for such a slim concept is up to you. B–
NIGHTWATCH (1994) Law student Martin (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Game of Thrones fame) moonlights as a security guard at a morgue during the graveyard shift, where he’s the subject of torment by a serial killer. The bodies are dumped at Martin’s place of employment, where the nervous young man gets an eyeful of the brutal nature of the crimes—the majority of the victims are stabbed and scalped. The killer taunts Martin by moving a body around the morgue and leaving bloody footprints that are, naturally, gone by the time the cops arrive. Martin’s girlfriend (Sofie Gråbøl) is confronted by a prostitute who claims Martin is a necrophiliac who killed her roommate, which doesn’t help Martin’s case when the cops start suspecting him of having sex with the morgue’s corpses. The movie’s flimsy plot is really just an excuse for the lurid activities of the killer, who in the years following The Silence of the Lambs presents a methodical modus operandi for dispatching young people, a plot point that would consume psycho-thrillers for decades. At one point, Martin tells a character he feels like he’s trapped in a bad movie. I can’t argue with reason. Remade by the same director in 1997 and followed by a recent sequel. C–
SPASMS (1983) Wealthy hunter Oliver Reed hires scientist Peter Fonda to help him understand his unexplained psychic link with a massive snake that bit him on a Micronesian island. Reed has the serpent brought to America, where its intercepted by a cult of snake-worshippers who believe the reptile is the Devil in earthly form and accidentally release the beast unto the public. People bitten develop large pustules that split open and bleed out. Three women are killed in their apartment in a sequence that’s fast paced and suspenseful—in a very Hitchcockian moment, the final victim is attacked while taking a shower. The snake effects are briefly glimpsed but effective. Reed, Fonda, and rest are good, and William Fruet’s direction taught, but the screenplay leaves a lot to be desired and builds to a silly, flashback-heavy climax. C+