This semi-obscure Aussie psycho thriller would probably be better known if it hadn't been overlooked by the Director of Public Prosecutions when compiling the UK Section 1 list of 'video nasties; it could easily have bumped the DPP39 up to a round 40, due to a harrowing scene in which the film's antagonist, gardener Gordon (Chard Hayward), rapes and kills pop star Marie (Deborah Coulls). No doubt Marie would have thought twice about upsetting Gordon if she had known how unbalanced he was: obsessed with his pretty boss, Gordon's hobbies include rolling around on his bed with a life size doll of the songstress. and spying on her at the beach whilst she exercises.
After doing away with Marie, Gordon proceeds to bump off her elderly neighbour Billy (who catches the gardener trying to dispose of the singer's body), and then terrorises Marie's sister Jenny (Louise Howitt), who had arranged to house-sit while Marie was on a location shoot. However, Jenny proves much tougher to kill, the woman fighting back a la Kevin McCallister.
Directed by Terry Bourke, the man responsible for kicking off the '70s Ozploitation craze with Night of Fear (1973), Lady Stay Dead is a tense, well acted slice of sleazy horror, with a suitably demented psycho (prior to killing, Gordon had been content with seducing and abusing local bored housewives), a likeable protagonist in Jenny (who is nothing like her obnoxious sibling), plenty of mean-spirited violence (a man is burnt alive and even a dog is killed), and a well-handled, action-packed finale, as brave security officer Clyde Collings (Roger Ward, who played Fifi in Mad Max) comes to Jenny's aid.
The final act does stretch plausibility just a tad, Collings stupidly (and fatally) turning his back on Gordon after a fight in a swimming pool, and the gardener being catapulted through a car wind-screen when hit by a motorcyclist, but on the whole this is a very effective chiller that might be held in higher regard by horror fans had it benefited from the same notoriety as numerous far less worthy titles.
