La sonrisa de la muerte

In OUT OF THE DARK, a maniac in a clown mask threatens the women working for a "fantasy phone call" service. This is no ordinary pervert, and soon the girls are biting the dust one by one. The cops are baffled, and there are several suspects, some more obvious than others.

This is one of those rather lackluster, late 1980s slasher films that came along after the subgenre had mostly been played out. It's sluggish, sort of goofy, and not all that frightening. The killer is absurd, which would have been alright if this had been more of a comedy. As it stands, it's not very memorable. There's also plenty of soft core cheeeze, if that's to your liking.

It is nice to see Karen Black, Bud Cort, and Geoffrey Lewis, though their talents are wasted here. Paul Bartel produced this movie. If only he'd directed it as one of his comedies and starred in it (watch for his cameo as a be-wigged hotel manager), it might have at least been funnier...

Enter the world of phone sex. Yeah, that was a thing back in the day, before the Internet.

Kristi works for a phone sex business, Suite Nothings, owned by Ruth (Karen Black). Her boyfriend is Kevin, who works as a photographer, taking sensual images of the girls working for Suite Nothings. Off course, being a film about a phone sex business AND being an 80's slasher, there's no surprise in this being sexploitation. Yup, nude girls and boobies, boobies, boobies.

Bobo, a guy with a clown mask, stalks and kills the girls working for Suite Nothings. Being a whodunit murder mystery, the film tries very hard to set up possible suspects, but it is rather obvious who the killer is. I had my suspicions from the very beginning, and I was right.

While detectives try to solve the murders, Kristi and Kevin do their own investigation as well. 'Out of the Dark' is not a bad entry to the 80's slasher repertoire, but I'm not sure I'm going to remember it by its title.

Look out for a guest appearance by Divine, whom I hardly recognized without his trademark make-up.

A telephone sex service named "Suite Nothings" is being tormented by an insane killer, who knocks off the beautiful woman on the other end of the phone one by one, in many brutal ways. So now, one of the women and their boyfriend who is a prime suspect of these sex-related crimes by the police try to work who is this killer that hides behind a clown's mask with their twisted sense of humour. This leads them too so many unexpected clues and suspicious suspects, which just keep on popping up.

Well, this is my second viewing of this film and it hasn't improved on my first one bit, but its mildly amusing despite we've seen it all before. What we got here is a reasonably sub-standard slasher with A LOT of sleaze, sex and added nastiness, with some very twisted humour along the way too. Although some things actually don't work, and you'll be snickering at how ridiculous certain set-ups are and how outrageous the violence is. Even the oh so many coincidences and why would you do that scenarios that crop up doesn't help either. Its main problem was that it took itself FAR to seriously in spots, making it funny in parts that it shouldn't have been. But then again, this is what really keeps you watching this particular film. I'm hoping its trying to be a parody on the sub-genre. Hold on, I almost forgot… a cheesy, but sometimes-erotic soundtrack helps you get into the 80's spirit!

The actual plot has so many twists, turns and plenty of red herrings, with certain sub-plots being left up in the air and characters disappearing from on screen. Such as one of b-grades finest Karen Black, one of the film's strong points… her character just vanishes after the halfway point. This is why certain things you pick up don't make too much sense and why at times it tries to be a moving drama, then comedy and a sudden u-turn into horror. Please make your mind up! It just seems there was too much going on at times, which gave it a padded feel. When it finally comes to the outlandish climax the killer's identity is a real let down in my opinion. Overall, the killer was just too goofy and cracked too many lame one-liners.

Fine performances from an exceptional b-cast (Cameron Dye, Bud Cort, Tracy Walter, Geoffery Lewis, Starr Andreeff, Paul Bartel, Tab Hunter). There was your occasional flat or eccentric performance and the cross dresser Divine makes a small cameo as a police detective. It's just that most of the characters were unlikeable and the dialogue that came from their mouths was shallow trite. The actual production wasn't too shabby and there were some well setup sequences. But where's was the suspense? Actually, what am I going on about? Oh right, it's a cheesy 80s slasher film.

Overall, there's some fun to be had with it providing enough nudity and cheap violence, which you expect from this type of film.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs n found it to be a bit terrifying cos of the clown mask n the baseball bat n shovel scenes.

Revisited it recently on a fast forward mode.

The movie has enuff kills n nudity but the sex scene is lousy cos its shot in dim light n fast cut editing.

Tracey Walter was not at all convincing as a cop and his character barging inside a house with a shotgun and that too outta nowhere is like yo man wtf is that.

Walter got stereotyped as a comical character actor, especially aft Conan the Destroyer.

Another big wtf moment is the killer rising up after being shot as if it has some supernatural powers.

There is a very stupid scene where a guy sneaks inside an accountant's office but how he manages to get out is never shown. Like a piece of cake and that too with the accountant present.

Lively thriller about a clown who stalks the beautiful ladies of an L.A. sex hotline that has a keen eye for the visual and a macabre performance from Cort, whom many may suspect as the killer...but...you must dig deeper to find the answer to that one.