Die Spur der Bestie

TORMENT was one of those videos that sat gathering dust at the local video store, so I decided to pick it up one day and give it a look. In all honesty, the film is good for the one surprising twist halfway through the meandering story, but does one twist a movie make? Not really. The film is low-low budget, and the small cast and limited situations are reflective of that. The cast does just enough to get the story told and that's about it. But do you watch a film like this to be blown away? Nope. The directors do throw in a few interesting touches, such as the interesting opening sequence of the murderer's car going down the highway, and the cranky old woman in the wheelchair who winds up being something of the hero sort. Other than that, if you want to skip on by, start the walking.

A recently engaged woman's weekend with her soon-to-be-mother-in-law gets crashed by a deranged psycho who's set his sights on them.

Torment is an obviously low budget offering without any major star power and technical pizazz to help it through some the duller moments of the film, but a midpoint twist is a real shocker and a lot of the scares and jolts are very effective. Still worth seeing once.

As is the case with a lot of movies, there were some really good and inventive ideas for the plot and in the hands of a better writer/director and cast, this could have been a great movie. It is still better than a lot of the dross produced in the 80's, just needed more polishing.

Awesome film. The theatrics are amazing. William Witt is a great actor

If you didn't notice the year this takes place (1985) due to the cars and clothes, you'd probably think this was a film from around 1970-74, and likely a European Giallo thriller, but it isn't one because it's 1985 and set in and around San Francisco. However, it owes much to the influences of Argento and the other Italian and European directors of this particular type of horror film, called the "yellow" (Giallo) cinema. These really are films of terror, not horror, and they are typically slow-paced and languid, with a minimal music track that doesn't get in the way, a normal human killer (normal meaning non-supernatural) with definitely twisted psychological motivations or obsessions. The actors are also minimal, with only limited numbers of characters, and they are often well-rounded character actors who rise to the occasion to put in above average performances. These films also have rather grisly killings with a fair amount of gore. This particular film meets all of these standards, with the exception being that it is only moderately gory. As has been said in other comments, if you are a fan of the gory modern fast-paced horror films with flat stereotypical characters, you might be bored by TORMENT, but if you like nicely done, plot-driven Giallo terror thrillers, this will not be wasted time for you.