The Last Shot You Hear

I have - not searched - but wondered about this movie since decades. I saw it on Gordon Hessler's filmography but it was impossible to watch it, to purchase this feature. I admit that I was curious to see what it was about, because I usually like - not love, just like - the movies from this British director, mainly his horror oriented flicks. Like a director as William Girdler, same kind of film maker, and from the same period, the glorious seventies. So, I at long last, found this LAST SHOT YOU HEAR...Hmmm. How to explain, how to say that I was so deceived, it was a shock for me, regarding it is a movie from Gordon Hessler. Though not being my all time favorite film maker, I expected something else from him. It was daring for him to propose something else than horror, coffins, ghouls, brutal killings, yes, it was daring, but sometimes who dares doesn't necessarily wins. I only gave my own opinion. In the absolute, this is not an awful film, no, it would have been made by an unknown director, my feelings would have been qquite different.

Everything about this screams bad TV movie. The acting was wooden and the cinematography and color rendition worse. The transitions were terrible, the lighting amateurish and the music sometimes silly. It was originally screened in B&W, that may have dimmed its awfulness but in its original color, it just looks strange. The lights are overhead, making every character raccoon-eyes in many scenes and the sets have the evenness of color one associates with shot-for-TV serials where there is little custom lighting, just brightness. Many shots are characterized by the shot-from-down-low with-something-in-the-foreground really amateurish look. I felt sort of sorry for Patricia Hanes; the film made her look gawky and unattractive. Don't waste time watching this, it will darken your day.