Fondu au Noir

This is a favorite movie of mine. I rushed out and got it on video when I heard it had been released. A lot of people here have given impressions of the story, I won't add to their great comments. What I would like to say is this this movie is a tremendous tribute to Hollywood Classic Movies. You will see snippets of many films here, all will be readily recognized. You will see Dennis Christopher's character slip deep into psychosis and take on the personas (and look..) of many of these characters in order to wreak his revenge. The more you know about old movies, the more you will get out of this film. Yes, it's essentially a slasher movie but this goes beyond the genre to get deep into the head of a killer. I like to think of this movie as a movie-fans version of "Sunset Boulevard", showing a broken mind on the other side of the fence. Worth seeing.

The concept for Fade To Black could go many different directions, but the film wavers between serious character drama a la Joker, made for TV melodrama, and a cursory attempt at a slasher film. They never really mesh and the film feels too confused to make much of an impact in spite of a wonderful central performance by Dennis Christopher. Linda Kerrige also makes for a smashing Marilyn Monroe impersonator.

Dennis Christopher turns in the performance of his career as a movie obsessed loner who disguises himself as his favorite film characters to get revenge on those he believes have wronged him.

Fade to Black is somewhere between a classy psychological thriller and a slasher movie, but it refuses to lean into either or and ends up not being much of anything other than a missed opportunity. It's hard to imagine a bloodthirsty slasher fan getting much out of this and it's not quite smart and insightful enough to get any mainstream attention.

There are three types of horror films 1.the scary horror film (designed as you would think to scare you. 2.The black comedy (Its meant to be funny, but not everyone will find this true. Third and last are the dramatic horror films, they play like a drama film except they are much darker and usually have something to do with mental illnesses. This movie is of the third kind, It is a sad character study of a young man called Eric who spends all his time watching movies and finding out trivia about them. He has no apparent friends and he lives with his wheelchair bound aunt, who really is at odds with him. The film is very original and has a incredible lead performance from the actor playing Eric. They cops on the other hand are all really badly done, I just couldnt wait till they left the screen and every time they appeared again I grimly waited for there departure. Most of the other actors do quite a good job in this film and it also sports a young Mickey Rouke in what I think was his first film role. I would recommend this film only to horror fans, The film references, the characters and the direction are all tuned to giving any horror fan a good time for their money. Its not for everyone. But thats what I liked about it.

Dennis Christopher stars as a young film buff with no sense of a real family, no friends, and an obsessive need to live through film vicariously. He soon begins to act out the violence he sees on the big screen, and people close to him soon die. Although the premise for the film is original and innovative, the film does have some budgetary constraints and suffers from a weak overall plot. Notwithstanding the pedestrian direction and amateurish performances in general, the film does have a likable quality to it and does pay tribute to some great films while Christopher turns himself into various characters. Christopher does a rather good job in his demanding role, a role that really needs more flesh to it. The rest of the cast is rather blah with Tim Thomerson really giving an excrutiatingly bad performance as a psychologist working with the cops. Linda Kerridge stands out for her beauty if nothing else as an Australian Marilyn Monroe look-a-like. Christopher stands into such roles as Richard Widmark's killer in Kiss of Death, Dracula, the Mummy( a very poorly shot and conceived bit), Hoppalong Cassidy and Laurence Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl. For those of you with a good background in film, the movie takes on a different level of meaning and is fun as a homage piece.