Raw Nerve (1991) [filmed in 1990]

... aka: Farligt sinne (Dangerous Mind)

... aka: Intuizioni mortali (Deadly Insights)

... aka: Kuoleman sirpaleet (Fragments of Death)

... aka: Nervos à Flor da Pele (Nerves on the Skin)

... aka: Premonition

Directed by:

David A. Prior

After losing their parents, adult children Jimmy and Gina Clayton (Ted Prior and Traci Lords) share a home. He's a minor league race car driver with conservative morals and financially supports the two of them. She's a smart, though slightly rebellious, 18-year-old high school senior who wears halter tops, skin-hugging miniskirts and high heels to class (well, she IS Traci Lords, after all) and has just been accepted into the Pre-Med program at the college of her choice. The two share a close bond, which actually comes off as a little TOO close as in borderline creepy incestuous close. He complements her on her looks and "great legs" while she tells him "You look hot!" Yikes. Jimmy is extremely overly protective of his kid sister, borderline paranoid she'll be led astray and expects her to live the same impossibly clean lifestyle he does. That means no dating, no sex, no drinking, no drugs and no sexy shoes. Fat chance. She is Traci Lords, after all. Jimmy's slovenly uncle, car mechanic Blake (Randall 'Tex' Cobb), who drinks beer for breakfast, belches constantly, doesn't appear to ever shower and has been married six times, informs him that Gina "needs to be out running around, getting laid..."

While out on the race track, Jimmy wrecks after getting an excruciating headache followed by a scary psychic vision of twin sisters being murdered by someone clad in black in a room of mirrors at a carnival. He's later able to confirm via a newspaper that these murders did indeed take place. And they're not the first either. So far the tally is six and a serial killer with a fetish for red high heels is on the loose. He's called "The Face Killer" by the press for his penchant for shooting women in the face. Police officers - led by Captain Gavin (Glenn Ford) and Lt. Bruce Ellis (Jan-Michael Vincent) - are already trying to crack the case.

Jimmy goes to the police station and offers to be of some assistance but when he informs Gavin of his visions he's understandably thrown right out. Thankfully, nosy investigative reporter Gloria Freedman (Sandahl Bergman) is at the station trying to get the scoop and overhears some of the conversation. She then invites Jimmy out for coffee to discuss things further. That leads to dinner at her place which leads to Jimmy finally loosening up a bit and jumping into bed with her on their very first date. Their budding relationship doesn't sit too well with Ellis, as he used to be married to Gloria and is still in love with her. Meanwhile, Gina and her friend Lori (Yvonne Stancil) go to a school dance, sneak outside to "smoke a doobie" and are accosted by the killer, who leaps out of a second story window with his shotgun and kills Lori. Gina, who passes out, is spared. For now, at least.

Police come up with a profile for the killer. A police psychologist believes he or she either suffers from multiple personality disorder and perhaps "a classic case of object-induced dream state psychotic dysfunction" (?!) Plugging the information they have thus far into their trusty computer, Jimmy is tagged as the most likely suspect in the killings. Further delving into his past, Ellis discovers Jimmy had an extremely traumatic childhood. Not only was he sexually abused by his own mother up into his early teen years but he also witnessed his father shoot their mother in the face before turning the gun on himself after he caught the two of them in bed together. Jimmy then spent three years at "the funny farm" to recover. But has he? Then again, Uncle Blake could be responsible. He's seen fondling a pair of red high heels in one scene and starts stalking and threatening Gloria. Or the killer could be an out-of-left-field choice. I'll never tell.

There's a deranged elderly lady who shows up at the police station filing false rape reports against her neighbors, a car chase that ends on top of a parking garage, a pretty good car wreck, a new wave band performing at the dance and a few skeevy family secrets revealed during the twist ending, which is probably responsible for this otherwise bloodless and sexless film getting an R rating. Otherwise it is surprisingly tame.

Despite Prior's reputation for making nothing but violent exploitative schlock (see also: Deadly Prey, KILLER WORKOUT), this one is actually competently made for a change and could easily pass for your average made-for-TV psychological thriller. Even though it's nice to see that the director could make a passable film that doesn't insult one's intelligent, the problem here is that the plot is simply too tired and unoriginal. While this is watchable, it's not nearly as memorable or entertaining as many of his other films, even if it's technically put together with more skill.

One of the biggest selling points is certainly the cast. In his final theatrical release, top-billed Ford looks bored as hell sitting behind a desk reciting colorless dialogue. Vincent, who appears to be drunk in all his scenes, gives an absolutely terrible performance which consists of barely-coherent mumbling and making simple lines of dialogue look physically painful to spit out. Surprisingly, Ted Prior proves to be a capable leading man here and Cobb can play this shady greaseball in his sleep; in fact he made a career of just that. Bringing much more to the table are the ladies. I always love me some Traci Lords and she looks very vibrant and beautiful here, plus creates a likable character with her limited screen time. I wasn't previously a big fan of Bergman's work outside of Conan, but she's really been winning me over here lately the more I've seen of her and makes for a very appealing female lead.

This was filmed around Mobile, Alabama and was given a very limited theatrical release by AIP in 1991, followed by a VHS release through the same company. As far as I know, all DVD and streaming releases are sourced from the video copy.

★★

Haunting Fear (1990)

... aka: Edgar Allan Poe's Haunting Fear

Directed by:
Fred Olen Ray

I saw this one a very long time ago and thought it was awful. Upon this re-visit, I enjoyed it a bit more; probably because I knew just what I was getting myself into. Very loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's story "Premature Burial," this has Poe's name plastered all over the VHS box, begins with a Poe quote, throws Poe's name over the title and then makes sure that we know that "Sherman Scott's" (Ray's) screenplay is based on Poe. So Poe or no Poe? Well, there is a premature burial of sorts but the similarities pretty much end right there. With this one you'll be getting lots of R-rated sex and nudity plus three different story paths that hope to blend together at the very end. The first aspect of the story is an utterly unoriginal kill-or-drive-the-wife-insane-for-her-money angle. The second, and the most interesting aspect, is a blurring or dream and reality. We're not always entirely surely (at least in the beginning) if what's happening is really happening or just in the mind of its troubled heroine. The third is the possible presence of the supernatural, which itself is divided into three separate possibilities: ghosts, possession and reincarnation. Or perhaps a blending of all three could be at play. Hey, I never said this thing wasn't muddled as fuck, did I?

Neurotic, wealthy housewife Victoria Munroe (Brinke Stevens) is suffering from horrible nightmares that won't let her sleep. Some of these involve her father (Hoke Howell), who she believes may have been buried alive, which instills the fear in her that she too may be prematurely entombed. Vicky blames family physician Dr. Richard Carlton (Robert Clarke) for her dad's death because in a last ditch effort to save him during a heart attack, Carlton gave him an injection of adrenaline. Nevertheless, a girl's gotta sleep, so she's prescribed some powerful sleeping pills. Meanwhile, Victoria's businessman hubby Terry (Jay Richardson) is having an affair with his kinky secretary / mistress Lisa (Delia Sheppard) and owes 80 thousand dollars of gambling debt to sleazy mob boss Mr. Visconti (Robert Quarry), who demands payment soon... or else. The adulterous hubby and his Girl Friday hope that Victoria's weak heart will give out just like it did her old man's, but they're not above trying to speed along the process to get their greedy hands on Victoria's estate. Watching all of the action from a car parked outside the Munroe home is James Trent (Jan-Michael Vincent); who claims to be a detective following up on neighbor complaints of screaming, but may be up something else entirely.

Victoria's nightmares continue to drive her increasingly closer to the breaking point. She imagines her father comes to life in his casket and grabs her, that she's in a bathtub slowly filling with blood and that she finds a skull which oozes yellow gunk and maggots while she's outside gardening. The best nightmare is when she dreams she dies of heart failure but remains conscious inside her own body and is hauled off to a mortuary where she awakens mid-autopsy just as Michael Berryman (in a fun cameo) starts to cut her open. Dr. Carlton eventually seeks the aid of hypnotist and paranormal researcher Dr. Julia Harcourt (Karen Black) in getting to the bottom of the troubled Victoria's irrational fears. After putting Victoria under, Dr. Harcourt is able to communicate with a dormant spirit inside Victoria; her former self. Apparently, in her past life Victoria was raped by her brother-in-law on her wedding night. The husband got revenge by burying both of them alive. Once this is uncovered, Victoria is finally freed of her fears, only to awaken and find her worst nightmare coming true...

I still don't know what in the hell happened at the end. Did Victoria simply go crazy? Did she die of a heart attack and then reemerge from her coffin possessed? If so, by whom? Her dead father? The ghost of her past self? I wish I could provide an answer but sadly I couldn't quite figure it out. I also couldn't quite figure out if it was intentionally left this way so we could make up our own minds about it or not. All I really know is that the last shot rips off the end of the killer doll segment of Trilogy of Terror (1975) by having a bloody, hunched-over Vicky slowly tapping her knife on the kitchen floor.

Haunting Fear is pretty talky and depends a lot on its stars; many of whom had a good deal of dialogue to spit out during the 6-day shoot. Thankfully, there are some decent actors in this one and they make the frequent character interactions at least somewhat entertaining. Stevens looks lovely, has three nude scenes in the first half-hour and attempts (with varying degrees of success) to make her character a sympathetic focal point. Vincent looks - gasp! - clean-cut and sober, which is about the best you could hope for from him by this point in his career. Black (dolled out in a short blonde wig) seems like she'd rather be somewhere else and appears annoyed by something in both of her scenes. Perhaps she read the script just a few minutes before filming? Still, always nice seeing her, as well as veteran horror stars Clarke (The Hideous Sun Demon), Quarry (Count Yorga, Vampire) and Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes). Strangely enough though, it is Sheppard (a former Penthouse Pet from Denmark) who walks away with this one... and not just because she looks great naked and has two lengthy sex scenes. She's simply fun to watch as the evil bitch secretary who likes to burn her breasts with lit cigarettes, smack her lover around in bed and call our demure and sweet little heroine things like "sniveling little whore."

Things get off to an extremely slow start and the action doesn't really pick up until the last 20 minutes, which features some truly laughable gore fx (including a terrible dummy head). Shot in 1989 on a budget of 115,000 dollars, it at least looks and sounds like a proper movie thanks to Gary Graver's professional photography and Chuck Cirino's elegant music score. Rhino and Troma were the VHS distributors but I'm not aware of an American DVD release.

★★