4 reviews
At the expensive New York Gotham College is a grumpy, slightly disturbed maintenance man, John Doe who carries a grudge against the highly privileged. He storms up a plan to ransom the dean of $1 million, as he has planted a poisoned carton of ice cream (which the Gotham College owns stock in) at the dorm's tuck shop and if they don't pay. He won't let them find out where to find it. Unluckily Denise, a freshman buys the ice-cream and comes close to death. John then becomes obsessed with her, and tries to finish the job himself.
You could say this is one to pluck out of obscurity, or best left there. "Deadly Obsession" is a late 80's, low-cost psychotic semi-slasher vehicle that's not your usual stalk n slash item. From what I mean usual, it leans more towards the cop investigation trying to catch the killer in the same vein of "When A Stranger Calls (1979)", than providing just a random, bloody body count of weightless characters. Here there aren't many characters for the slaughter, but more so a suspenseful, moody and macabre cat and mouse game between the killer and his intended victim. His eyes are set on only one girl. It's a hard one to put together though. What starts off looking like its going to be a sleazy, gritty and raw film within the first half-hour, it then goes on to become something traditional and melodramatic in formula. Now here comes the most terrible aspect about it. The script! What a groaner with such lame and puerile dialogues. My ears were aching listening to some of this babble. Even throw in that gaudily overdone synthesizer music score. At times it was genuinely eerie or painfully manipulative. Jeno Hodi's direction was organically tight and made well of those foreboding plights of claustrophobic tension and growing fear. These were the chase scenes through dark, shadowy corridors, locker rooms, swimming pool and underground tunnels. Doco-like cinematography helped ground it. The deaths have a real nastiness to them, and offer some blood splatter, but not too extreme or overly creative. Hell some happen off-screen. Also don't threat as there's some T&A on show. Nothing surprising on the acting front. It's amateurish, but acceptable to a point. Darnell Martin perfectly brings the right sort of innocence and terror to her role as Denise. Joe Paradise is uncannily, over-enthusiastic as the loony John Doe. He really gets into character! Jeff Iorio I found overbearing as the cop who's left to look over Denise and Martin Haber amusingly gruffs about as Lt. Walsh.
You could say this is one to pluck out of obscurity, or best left there. "Deadly Obsession" is a late 80's, low-cost psychotic semi-slasher vehicle that's not your usual stalk n slash item. From what I mean usual, it leans more towards the cop investigation trying to catch the killer in the same vein of "When A Stranger Calls (1979)", than providing just a random, bloody body count of weightless characters. Here there aren't many characters for the slaughter, but more so a suspenseful, moody and macabre cat and mouse game between the killer and his intended victim. His eyes are set on only one girl. It's a hard one to put together though. What starts off looking like its going to be a sleazy, gritty and raw film within the first half-hour, it then goes on to become something traditional and melodramatic in formula. Now here comes the most terrible aspect about it. The script! What a groaner with such lame and puerile dialogues. My ears were aching listening to some of this babble. Even throw in that gaudily overdone synthesizer music score. At times it was genuinely eerie or painfully manipulative. Jeno Hodi's direction was organically tight and made well of those foreboding plights of claustrophobic tension and growing fear. These were the chase scenes through dark, shadowy corridors, locker rooms, swimming pool and underground tunnels. Doco-like cinematography helped ground it. The deaths have a real nastiness to them, and offer some blood splatter, but not too extreme or overly creative. Hell some happen off-screen. Also don't threat as there's some T&A on show. Nothing surprising on the acting front. It's amateurish, but acceptable to a point. Darnell Martin perfectly brings the right sort of innocence and terror to her role as Denise. Joe Paradise is uncannily, over-enthusiastic as the loony John Doe. He really gets into character! Jeff Iorio I found overbearing as the cop who's left to look over Denise and Martin Haber amusingly gruffs about as Lt. Walsh.
- lost-in-limbo
- May 2, 2008
- Permalink
This is a pretty hard movie to come by, but if you do, don't pass it up! Back in the 80's, when slasher movies were still worth watching, this one came out that plopped a fly into the ointment of the slasher archetype. Get this, there's a ransom theme! You see that in Halloween 11? And some protective custody stuff, too, which is also pretty cool. So there's a janitor in a university building putting rat poison in food to extort money. But when a hot student gets involved, there's lots of cat and mouse games going on. These are really the highlights of the movie. Most run and hide, find and kill sequences are pretty lame, but these pack a lot of punch, and didn't bore me to the point of fast-forwarding, as they often can. Cool scenes involving pools and locker rooms, oh yeah. Maybe it sounds simple, but it is so, so good. An original concept carried out well, what more can you ask for? Not much, friend, not much at all.
- zpluscinema
- Oct 7, 2002
- Permalink
- serialslashers
- Jan 8, 2006
- Permalink
My review was written in March 1989 after watching the movie on Republic Pictures video cassette.
Gotham-lensed thriller is an okay low-budget entry dealing with a contemporary fear similar to the Tylenol scare a while back. Item from South Africa-based Indian producer Anant Singh went direct to video Stateside.
Nonactress Darnell Martin is the pretty heroine in jeopardy, barely saved from death when she ingests some ice cream dosed with rat poison. Baddie Joe Paradise is poisoning the dessert on store shelves to protest a company's mistreating of animals.
Hungarian-born debuting helmer Jeno Hodi keeps the pic suspenseful, though a sci-fi premise (e.g., involving experimental drugs) would have been more interesting than a kook with rat poison. Martin is a winning presence; ditto her protector/leading man Jeffrey R. Iorio.
Pic makes good use of its locale. Shot on the campus of Columbia University (called "Gotham College" in the story), pic's best scene is an extended homage to Val Lewton set after hours at the school's indoor pool.
Gotham-lensed thriller is an okay low-budget entry dealing with a contemporary fear similar to the Tylenol scare a while back. Item from South Africa-based Indian producer Anant Singh went direct to video Stateside.
Nonactress Darnell Martin is the pretty heroine in jeopardy, barely saved from death when she ingests some ice cream dosed with rat poison. Baddie Joe Paradise is poisoning the dessert on store shelves to protest a company's mistreating of animals.
Hungarian-born debuting helmer Jeno Hodi keeps the pic suspenseful, though a sci-fi premise (e.g., involving experimental drugs) would have been more interesting than a kook with rat poison. Martin is a winning presence; ditto her protector/leading man Jeffrey R. Iorio.
Pic makes good use of its locale. Shot on the campus of Columbia University (called "Gotham College" in the story), pic's best scene is an extended homage to Val Lewton set after hours at the school's indoor pool.