I'm the Girl He Wants to Kill (1974) (TV)

... aka: Thriller: I'm the Girl He Wants to Kill

Directed by:

Shaun O'Riordan

American Ann Rodgers (Julie Sommars - FIVE DESPERATE WOMEN) fell in love with an Englishman and relocated to the UK. Though the marriage ended in divorce, she decided to stay in the country and has been working for an overseas director of the trade company Parker Industries ever since. The job requires long hours, lots of overtime and lots of late nights stuck at the office. After one of these late nights, she returns to her apartment building, passes a middle-aged, balding man (Robert Lang) exiting the building who doesn't utter a single word but gives her an intimidating stare and then finds the dead body of her next door neighbor lying in the hallway. The neighbor was just the latest victim of a serial killer who's been stabbing random women to death in recent months. While she's at the police station trying to match photos of the man she saw with photos of ex-cons on record, she meets head detective Mark Tanner (Tony Selby). The two hit it off and start dating.

Months later, while out on her lunch break, Ann stops to take a look inside a jewelry store and sees a familiar face working there: The same man she saw leaving her apartment the night of the murder! He chases her through town but she safely makes it back to her office building. There, she calls Mark to let him know that she saw him and he may have followed her back there. Coincidentally, at the same time she was being chased, a man fitting the killer's exact description right down to the black-and-white tennis shoes is arrested not far from her office. Mark schedules Ann to come in the following day to identify the man... only the police have captured the wrong guy and the real killer is hiding out inside Ann's building just waiting to strike.

As things at the hectic office building wind down for the evening, asshole company president Mr. Burton (Anthony Steel) slams Ann with folders full of paperwork that need to be done pronto. That means another late night at the office all by herself. Everyone leaves aside from security guard Sam (Ken Jones), who unluckily fills in for a colleague at the last minute and promptly gets to stabbed to death while doing the rounds. The killer then takes the keys, activates the security system, which locks all of the doors and windows in the building (making it impossible to escape) and thus begins a game of cat-and-mouse through the building between killer and prey.

This is a fine example of a small, videotaped TV production with a tiny budget that's able to efficiently work within its own means using simple, effective techniques to maintain suspense. Most of the action takes place in the lobby, a couple of office rooms, the stairwell and the elevators, but the director, writer (Brian Clemens), cameraman (who isn't even credited) and actors all manage to make it work. Clever, subtle touches, like panning from our heroine down to a plant in a hallway to show that someone else has just brushed against it, are used throughout to heighten the tension and this even provides a few good jump scares along the way. It's one of the better episodes of the series I've seen thus far.

Nearly this same exact idea of a woman trapped in a high-security high rise office building with a psycho was later used for a cable TV movie called Trapped (1989) directed by Fred Walton and starring Kathleen Quinlan, which is also pretty good, as well as Kristine Peterson's direct-to-video Lower Level (1991) and other films.

Of all the directors who worked on the six season Thriller series, O'Riordan directed by the most episodes with seven. Others of his include The Eyes Have It (1973), In the Steps of a Dead Man (1974), SCREAMER (1974), Sign It Death (1974), If It's a Man, Hang Up! (1975) and Nurse Will Make It Better aka The Devil's Web (1975). I'm the Girl... was one of the episodes to receive an independent VHS release here in the U. S. on the ThrillerVideo label. That version contains a new 5-minute-long opening credit sequence (filmed specifically for later syndication airings on U.S. TV) of the killer murdering a woman in the bathtub. Now all of these episodes (in their original, shorter forms) are available on DVD box sets distributed by a number of different companies: A&E, Network and Visual Entertainment.

★★★

Cinta Berdarah (1989)

... aka: Bloody Love

Directed by:

Torro Margens

A brutal fight tied in with a familial dispute leaves Dudung Sasmita (Hilal Azman) facially disfigured and with a bad case of buck tooth. That has everything to do with his estranged, two-timing wife, Rani (Wenny Rosaline), and his sleazy, backstabbing brother, Torro (played by the director), who've been not-so-secretly having an affair. Dudung waits for them to be alone, busts into the bedroom, catches them in the act and then teaches the two of them a lesson... with a machete and a bottle of acid! After murdering both, he hides the bodies behind a brick wall in the basement. Years later, a new couple – architect Anton (Hengky Tornando) and his wife Rita (Raja Ema) – move into the same home. They throw a boring housewarming party, where the highlights include Rita's pet cat “Pussy” flipping her shit at some unseen force lurking the grounds and Rita hearing a disembodied voice that no one else seems to hear. After the guests leave, there's a knock on the door. It's Dudung Samsita, no better for wear. He goes into the basement to “exorcise” the restless spirits, which involves chewing up what appears to be a raw garlic clove and then spitting it at the wall.

Because of the strange visitor, Anton goes to a spiritualist to get answers about just who Dudung is and get some insight into his past. Meanwhile, the garlic thingy doesn't seem to do the trick and the evil behind the wall possess the cat by shooting lasers into her eyes. When Rita is attacked by the possessed Pussy, she's forced to stab her to death with a pair of scissors. The housekeeper (who eventually gets run off) picks up the cat corpse with a shovel but the heavy-breathing wall sucks up all the blood before it can be cleaned.

Rita is soon hearing voices coming from the wall, envisions a kettle is a severed, talking head and has visions of laughing ghosts in a mirror and flashbacks to the original crime (and what led up to it). She floats and spins around in the air and is occasionally hypnotized and lured out of her bedroom at night to be sexually ravaged by the ghost. When Anton sees her writhing on the cellar floor in her nightgown, he grows suspicious that she may be having sex with another man... and, well, he's kind of right, though it's not exactly a consensual relationship.

The horny ghost of Torro starts paying Rita visits (either at night or while the hubby is away), which usually end with her nightgown lying on the floor and her wondering WTF just happened. The ghost is also handsy in other ways and sometimes pulls hair, punches, slaps and chokes poor Rita. It's kind of like a nudity-free PG-rated version of The Entity, though the wife isn't the only one who gets terrorized. Anton suffers from nightmares about a vanishing hitchhiker, is roughed up and forced to bust a bottle over his head. The evil also follows him to the construction site where it almost causes him to have a heart attack and impales a worker with a bulldozer! While all this is going on, Dudung tries to make right by repeatedly attempting to exorcise the spirit.

While there's nothing too original or groundbreaking about this small-cast haunted house film, it at least features a few amusing scenes and fun low budget effects. Lead actress Ema (a Malaysian import) is pretty good in the tormented lead role and Margens (who also scripted) goes way over-the-top as the ghost guy, who's sometimes seen with large white press-on nails, crazy hair, red eyes and plastic vampire fangs. The cast includes Hussein Abu Hassan (another Malaysian actor), who'd already appeared in a number of memorable Hong Kong horror / exploitation films like BEWITCHED (1981), Centipede Horror (1982), Red Spell Spells Red (1983) and SEEDING OF A GHOST (1983). There's also a plug for the film Tamu tengah malam / "Midnight Guest" (1989), which also starred Tornando.

Prolific actor / director Margens, who also scripted from a story by Abdullah Harahap, made a number of other horror films during this time, including Bloody Wedding (1987), also starring Ema, BLOODSTAINED PAINTING (1988) and A Pair of Deadly Eyes (1989), starring Tornando, Ema and Rosaline. None of these have been released in the U. S. and none are currently available with English subtitles.

★★