L'Homme aux ciseaux

Newspaper columnist, Julie (Marianna Hill) begins to receive threatening notes at work. In no time, members of her therapy group start being slaughtered by a black-gloved maniac with a huge pair of scissors.

We're given a rogue's gallery of suspects to choose from almost immediately, including Julie's soon-to-be ex-husband, Doug (Craig Wasson), a sullen handyman named Gilbert (Christopher Lloyd), and Julie's slimy, chain-smoking therapist, Dr. Peter Fales (Klaus Kinski). Oh, and let's not forget about Fales' bitter, messed-up daughter, Alison (Donna Wilkes)! As the perforated bodies stack up, the police are suitably baffled.

Part giallo and part slasher, SCHIZOID shows what can happen when a doctor cavorts with his patients. While not a brilliant effort, this movie does build a modicum of suspense, and the killer's identity isn't overly obvious.

For added fun, count the number of cigarettes Dr. Fales stokes up!...

A vicious killer is bumping off members of the therapy group run by creepy Dr. Fales (Klaus Kinski). Can reporter Julie (Marianna Hill) discover who is responsible before she becomes the lunatic's next victim?

Armed with a long pair of very sharp scissors, dressed in long black coat and hat, and with his (or her) identity always hidden in the shadows, Schizoid's mysterious murderer could have come straight out of a giallo movie, as could the film's umpteen shifty suspects and numerous red herrings; creepy Euro-horror regular Klaus Kinski also adds a hint of European flavour.

Sadly, despite these similarities to the giallo, Schizoid lacks the verve and unpredictability of that genre's typical logic-free narrative, becoming mired in dreary familial strife and unnecessary police procedure, ultimately floundering in its own predictability; furthermore, the film's cinematography is devoid of the glorious visual excess often found in Italian horror.

Kinski is dreadfully miscast as a womanising therapist (not exactly the kind of role he was born to play), Wasson's performance is simply terrible, and Christopher Lloyd hardly stretches himself as an oddball handy-man. Far better than all three is Donna Wilkes, who convincingly plays Kinski's emotionally disturbed jail-bait daughter Alison, and who even gives fans (and her pervy on-screen father) an eyeful during a brief shower scene.

For the hilarious ending, when all the suspects converge on one location for a very daft finale, and for the lovely Wilkes, I give Schizoid 4.5/10 (rounded up to 5 for IMDb), but this is far from essential 80s horror.

The most unbelievable part of Schizoid is the fact that every female patient of Klaus Kinski's therapy group wants to sleep with him. Not to be ugly or anything, but the man looks like a serial killing rapist and seems mentally unstable himself. Maybe this would have worked with a less creepy actor in the role, but it doesn't ring true the way it is.

Anyway, Schizoid is about a newspaper advice writer who keeps getting creepy letters that look like ransom notes. Could these be connected to the recent string of scissor murders that have terrorized her therapy group - the one run by Klaus Kinski?

Schizoid wants to go down a classier road than the other slashers at the time with it's relative lack of blood and adult cast. That's admirable, but there's not a whole lot of mystery here, especially after the opening murder where we can clearly see the killer's reflection in the rear view mirror of the car they're driving.

It also gets things off on the wrong foot by having the most boring opening scene of all time. Instead of starting off with the first murder, we spend a few minutes in our leading lady's apartment at night as she writes, goes to the fridge, etc. There's nothing interesting or gripping about it.

Schizoid is a good movie to have on in the background while you organize your clothes, but nothing more.

Julie (Mariana Hill) is an advice columnist for the city newspaper who begins to receive anonymous notes threatening murder and worse. At about the same time, female members of the group therapy session she attends are being stabbed, one by one, by an unknown assailant. Is there a connection?

This film has a very low rating on IMDb as of August 2013. I am not sure how, but i suspect it is due in part to the very few people who have voted. Hopefully when the Blu-Ray is released, the film gets more respect. Currently, it sits below "X-Ray", which is just unfair.

There is plenty of suspense, some good characters (Klaus Kinski and Christopher Lloyd never disappoint) and overall a pretty good mystery. You might have to guess two or three times before you figure out who the killer is (and yes, the clues are there).

I highly recommend Scream Factory's DVD / BD of this film. While it has few special features, the picture and sound look great and it was nice to watch an interview with Donna Wilkes, who really needs to make the rounds at more horror conventions.

Although the plot and rating of "Schizoid" didn't look too promising, I nevertheless really wanted to see it for three (very good) reasons… Number one: I generally like slasher movies from the year 1980 or 1981, because back then this sub-genre wasn't yet impacted by the overload of "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" clones. Number two: I was really interested to see a horror/thriller that starred both Klaus Kinski (one of my all-time favorite actors) and Christopher Lloyd in the earliest phase of his career (or at least, prior to the successful "Back to the Future" movies). And perhaps the biggest reason for me to track down "Schizoid" is the fact that it features so many typical trademarks of an Italian giallo! The killer, as he/she is briefly introduced during the opening sequences of the film, wears a long black raincoat and black leather gloves while his/her murder weapon is a sharp pair of scissors. These are preferred accessories of giallo-killers and, on top of that, he/she exclusively targets female victims and the murders bathe in a sexist atmosphere. My conclusion is that "Schizoid" is a moderately absorbing thriller with a handful of tense scenes and original touches, but regrettably also a large number of implausible twists. Beautiful Julie works as a columnist for a Californian newspaper, but she's caught in a difficult divorce and participates in the group therapy sessions of the acclaimed psychiatrist Dr. Pieter Fales. Julie starts receiving eerie letters that exist of newspaper clippings and talk of gruesome murders. The female members of her group therapy sessions are being killed off one by one as well. Who is the culprit? Is it the perverted Dr. Fales, who has sexual relations with all his patients? Or is it Dr. Fales' pre-ripe 16-year-old daughter, who hates her father and all the women he has sex with? Is it the mysteriously roaming and voyeuristic janitor Gilbert or Julie's ex-husband Doug who never wanted the divorce? Or perhaps Julie herself is the killer because, after all, the murder cases help increasing her popularity as a columnist! Like other reviewers already righteously pointed out, the biggest default of this film is the credibility of Klaus Kinski's character. As much as I worship this eccentric actor, he simply cannot pass for a psychiatrist; let alone a psychiatrist who manages to seduce and sleep with all his female patients. The search for the killer's identity, on the other hand, results in a couple of exciting sequences and a tense climax. The body count is sadly low for an early 80s slasher (only 3 victims) but the murder sequences are grim and atmospheric. The performances from the ensemble cast are just mediocre, with the exception of Donna Wilkes… She's downright fantastic and amazingly makes her young character Alison simultaneously sensual, creepy and forbidden. Solely based on her performance in this film, I've added the film "Angel" to my must-see list.