Onde de choc

Joseph Bottoms plays American Jonathan Ratcliff, living & working in Athens. His world is turned upside down when he suddenly losses his sight, but thankfully for him an electronic sonar device has just been invented which allows blind users to "see" (via very dated looking computer graphics) & he agrees to become the first person to try it. Meanwhile an unknown, gloved killer is murdering beautiful young women with a scalpel & it's only a matter of time before their paths cross. I'd never heard of this movie before, picked it up cheap on DVD from a charity shop, but once the name Nico Mastorakis appeared as director/producer on the opening credits my interest suddenly perked up (he made the infamous, one time "video nasty" Island of Death). I found this is to be reasonable attempt at making a giallo style psycho thriller. There's some good camera work going on during some of the more suspenseful sequences. Plenty of female topless nudity, including Kirstie Alley doing apparently her only ever topless on camera scene, though that's hardly a recommendation! Pretty tame in the gore department, only two onscreen kills, both bloody but brief. As already mentioned the computer graphics look very dated - even for 1984 - but it only adds to it's charm.

Director Nico Mastorakis had a moderately posh budget for once and was able to give this little techno thriller a nice glossy look, plus he proved somewhat prophetic when a few of his ideas regarding the central gimmick - a radar-like device that allows a blind person to 'see' via reflected sound - actually appeared in medical devices within a few years. Mastorakis, as usual, shows a good photographic eye for interesting backdrops, found objects, cityscapes etc. often from oddly skewed angles.

Moreover, the movie is an underground legend among video geeks who pursue gratuitous nudity by female TV stars. Marina Sirtis has a brief but memorable topless appearance as a hooker and Kirstie Alley features in her only nude sex scene. Infamous murder victim Lana Clarkson co- stars as the object of a stalker.

Beyond such prurient considerations, however, there is not a whole lot here that we didn't see fairly often in any 80s thriller. There are fights, car chases and foot pursuits (with the admittedly novel twist that one participant is a technologically augmented blind person). This was familiar stuff then and has gained no new freshness with age.

Here's a Greek thriller with horror overtones which passes the time well without really breaking any new genre boundaries. I did think the computer device which enables the lead to see white outlines on a black background was a very impressive (if not very realistic) creation which allows for plenty of disconcerting (not to mention cool-looking) visuals. Things become a little muddled when this device gives the lead some kind of psychic link (yes, that again) with a killer for no apparent reason, so instead it skips over the technical aspects and just hopes the audience will accept the device at face value.

The film definitely appears to have been influenced by the Italian giallo movies, with a series of innocent women being stalked and gruesomely killed by a mystery killer with an unknown motive. The killer even has his own distinct methods like always wearing rubber gloves at the crime and using a scalpel, believing himself to be a doctor. The one thing the film lacks is a true explanation of the murderer's motives, and instead we just have to take him and his reasons at face value. The stalk sequences make good use of shadows and lighting to build up some impressive atmosphere at moments.

The film is pretty grisly without actually showing anything, instead cutting away at the last moment from the crime. It does have a hard edge and sleazy atmosphere which is to be expected, I guess, when your director is Nico Mastorakis, the director of the infamous video nasty ISLAND OF DEATH. A strong cast also do their jobs well and help to root the film in reality, as well as creating real sympathy for the characters. Joseph Bottoms (one of the lesser known of four brothers) takes the lead role and convincingly portrays a man coming to terms with his blindness - a scene in the subway where he fights back against a gang of thugs is great stuff. James Daughton only appears at the very end of the film as the killer but his performance is chilling nonetheless. Genre favourite Keir Dullea enjoys a cameo turn as a mad/genius scientist and seems to have fun with his part, although he is only on screen for about ten minutes. Also keep an eye out for the guy billed as "crazy old man" who enjoys hiding in women's bathrooms - one of the weirdest bit characters you're likely to see.

The rest of the cast are mainly women, and most of the unknown actresses end up being undressed or in the shower for obvious gratuitous reasons (amusingly one of these actresses was a then-unknown Marina Sirtis, better known for her starring role in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. I bet she leaves this one off her resume...). Kirstie Alley has the thankless role of the lead's girlfriend but her character is totally superfluous to the plot, and the least the writer could have done would have been to endanger her in some way for an extra frisson. Popular blonde Lana Clarkson also has a fairly prominent role as a model who becomes a victim, taking a break from her usual "barbarian" type roles at the time.

There are a few minor moments in the film which resemble those in other popular movies (for example one scene is unmistakably reminiscent of REAR WINDOW) but BLIND DATE largely avoids the pitfall of becoming too clichéd. It does, howeve, offer plenty of realism and raw characters, some mild horror, a few shocks and plenty of suspense and atmosphere towards the end. The only thing missing is real excitement, thrills and chills.

This is an excellent film. The thing that struck me first was that this was a serial killer flick in which the police hardly figure at all, you see them once or twice from a distance. You have two stories running in parallel until finally, and inevitably, they cross.

The second thing that really got me thinking is that our agent of justice probably got the wrong man. The evidence we have is far too circumstantial and would have been thrown out by any right minded jury, if the judge had not already dismissed the case.

Was the real killer driving the cab from which Kirstie Alley's character fled?

The character of Jonathan Ratcliff is interesting because, whatever his virtues might be, he is also a stalker. And we discover that when he is blinded there is no physical reason for his disability. On some subconscious level he has chosen not to see, and when he is given a device which enables him to see, after a fashion, it is in black and white and works on the same principle as sonar, that is it reflects back the signals he sends. He no longer sees the whole picture, and neither do we.



The concept of blind Justice is on one level a reassuring one since everyone is equal irrespective of race, creed, power etc.. However, on the other hand, Justice is blind! This could mean that it cannot differentiate between the innocent and the guilty.

In the film the character of Jonathan Ratcliff is living out a fantasy, when at the end he is asked by the woman he has just 'rescued' what his name is he replies, 'A friend': like a guardian angel or a comic book superhero. He is a voyeur who has been forced to take a role, to follow a destiny and he shapes that destiny himself.

The film itself is well put together and there are some wonderful Hitchcockian touches, especially in the way it exploits the blindness of the central character and the limitations and possibilities of the electronic device that substitute for his eyes.

I rate this film 8 out of 10, very thought provoking.

I will not use the genre "THRILLER" to portray this film as in my humble opinion just because writer/director Nico Mastorakis who is one of the most highly successful Greek film and television producers penned Blind Date, it left me feeling cheated. Why you may ask?

Well... from the opening credits where there are a few dark and blurry scenes the audience witnesses a serial killer using a magic marker to outline on his first two female victims chests where he is about to use a sharp scalpel to cut them open, the less than scary musical score which Nico Mastorakis's uses is present throughout this very dull film.

I will say the science fiction approach to solve who the serial killer was something I have not seen in any other film. The lead actor Joseph Bottoms who plays Jonathon Ratcliff, a successful promotional executive is caught peeping on what he thinks is his first love and her new beau until the new beau named Dave (played by good looking James Daughton) gives chase in the middle of the night and as hilarious as it may seem, our star actor Jonathon Ractcliff runs smack dab into a low hanging tree limb and wakes up totally blind. Here is where the science fiction theme comes into play, a successful surgeon named Dr. Steiger (Keir Dullea) suggests he can help the recently blinded Jonathon Ratcliff using a combination or radiation surgery and a magnetic implant on his brain so that when he uses a prototype Sony Walkman (remember this film was made in 1984 and Sony was on the leading edge of the film and music industries technology boom) on the outer edge of Jonathon's skull he will be able to see 3-D animated outline images of what the rest of the world sees.

And so equipped with his new Sony Walkman seeing eye technology and a creative host of animators the film moves on to allow our star Jonathon Ratcliff to help save his first love once more from possibly falling as the next victim of this mad serial killer whose modus operando is to capture his female victims, then outline using a magic marker on their bare chests where he then intends to make his incision with his sharp scalpel while the directors irritating musical score sorely fails at keeping us the audience in suspense.

I won't spoil the ending for anyone since from the opening scene the film left me wondering if this film would be worth continuing to watch. I give the film a 4 out of 10 rating mainly for the unique use of the cutting edge sight seeing technology that Dr. Steiger used on his patient Jonathon Ratcliff which was the only interesting part of the story.