Vent de folie

One thing I really love about ex-rentals is the movie previews before the main feature, and that's how I came to know of this film. However it's only natural to have the best scenes in the trailer to wet your appetite… and by the way it bestows quite a cool video artwork.

Director / writer Nico Mastorakis (who made the very infamous video nasty "Island of Death") was churning out numerously quickly produced low-budget / straight to video enterprises in the mid to late eighties and "The Wind" aka "Edge of Terror" would have to be the pick of the lot for its interesting setting and exemplary lead performances from Meg Foster and Wings Hauser.

Mystery writer Sian Anderson travels to the Greek Isles for a couple of weeks to stay at an ancient villa in an isolated ghost town to storm up ideas for her next novel. The landlord warns her not to go out at night due to the killer winds that pass throughout the night, but another threat could be in the shape of the landlord's handyman Phil. Something about this man unnerves Sian, especially when one night she believes she saw him burying a corpse that just happens to be the landlord.

The pulpy story holds up rather well, leading us down the path maybe all of this is happening in the imaginative mind of its protagonist, as this when Steve Railsback's sceptical character comes into the equation. Perhaps predictable and systematic, but making headway of the standard material is the scenic local flavour that's arrestingly atmospheric, especially the eerie night sequences when the howling wind kicks in. Mastorakis ideally creates an edgy vibe with his lighting composition of shadows and lighting around the ancient villa on an ocean cliff-top with it being backed up by the shivery, high-strung music score and terse photography. You're really thrown right into it. What starts off slow-boil in genuinely building up the suspenseful situation, soon transforms in to a tautly simple-minded cat and mouse formula knowing too well of the clichés to suitably play them up. Towards the end it begins to meander, as some stupidity occurs and the final shot (while beautifully projected) is quite a laughable chance of fate.

Meg Foster makes for a strong, affable heroine who seems to have something constantly witty to say and a bug-eyed Hauser (in a fetching knitted white jumper) is simply made for these wack-job roles and he doesn't disappoint with his impulsively dangerous and rip-snorting villain. His exchanges with Foster early on is effectively engaging - "Death is a whole lot different on paper." Robert Morley and David McCallum also pop up.

Suspenseful, atmospheric thriller finds Meg Foster as a novelist who is stalked by Wings Hauser in a small, deserted foreign village during he middle of a really bad wind storm. Takes it time getting started, but worth the wait. The last third is especially exciting. Meg Foster is solid as usual, though Hauser goes over the top. Rated R; Violence and Profanity.

In Los Angeles, the successful writer of crime novels Sian Anderson (Meg Foster) decides to travel to a Greek village in the off-season to write a new book. She leaves her boyfriend John (David McCallum) and travels to the desert island, where she meets her landlord Elias Appleby (Robert Morley). He takes Sian to his house in the top of the hill and warns her about the wind. Later, his American employee Phill (Wings Hauser) brings groceries to Sian. During the night, Sian sees something strange at Phill's house and she decides to snoop around. She finds Elias dead and buried, and returns home. Soon she finds that Phill is a deranged killer and now he is looking after her.

"The Wind" is a tense slasher with a good storyline. Meg Foster's eyes are very well explored in this B-movie that could be a little shorter. Wings Hauser's character Phill seems to be indestructible and immortal. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Sopro do Demônio" ("The Demon Blow")

Mystery writer Sian Anderson (Meg Foster) goes on vacation to Greece to get a little writing done in a secluded village. She immediately gets on the bad side of a handyman Phil (Wings Hauser) when she sees him burying a human body. From then on, Sian is on the run from the crazed mad man who wants to get rid of the witness.

While The Wind has a great concept, it's not very involving or exciting in spite of some nice visuals and game performances by Foster and Hauser who seem to be giving it their all. The script feels rushed and a little on the bland side. There's a completely useless subplot involving an American couple who are on their honeymoon that kills too much time and a story thread involving Sian's boyfriend (David McCallum) ends up being a waste of time as well.

There's an almost interesting idea that tells you that Sian might be making all of this up due to her overactive writer's imagination, but they don't hold on that long enough to make it very compelling.

For viewers expecting gore, you'll be very unimpressed as The Wind keeps things in a very PG territory which gives the film a slight made for TV quality until Foster unleashes a few F-bombs and you're reminded that it's an R rated film. At best, The Wind is something to have on in the background.

"The Wind" or it's much better title which I viewed it under "The Edge Of Terror" is an OK movie, although I was lured by the DVD'S interesting artwork, which made this movie look like a body count, but it's not although there are some deaths, 3 in fact but they aren't anything special very bloodless and quite limp.

The storyline is quite interesting where we get a novelist named Sian Anderson leaves her L.A. pad to travel to a remote Greek island to write her new book, unaware that her fellow neighbour and handyman is about to snap and begin a murder spree. Although this movie picks up a decent pace, it's just the so called wind wasn't as dramatic as it should have been, and despite the decent enough pace this movie still tends to drag in places like before the climax and although the chase scenes are pretty good it just wasn't tense enough for my taste and some of the moments that should have been shocking just wasn't horrific enough.

Well there is a lot to like about this movie firstly the cast are interesting namely Meg Foster who plays the lead character, a very underrated actress who should be more well known and she does a great job here and carries the movie on her shoulders effortlessly and Robert Morley was quite fun as the pompus landlord and Wings Hauser as the maniac did okay, but not quite menacing enough though but he did pretty good.

All in all "The Edge Of Terror" is pretty tame thriller with some decent moments but not enough to shine, and the pointless scenes that are just there to pad out the running time, like when the honeymoon couple show up stranded, they should have got murdered, now that would have been a great climax, so not a bad film by any means, just don't expect a full on slasher movie or you will be disappointed.