80s horror films are a lot better viewing experiences for me than the majority of modern horrors. I think a large part of this is due to fact it was just a scarier time. There were less people around and you didn't have the fallback of CCTV footage keeping an eye out for you. So when a character is walking down secluded streets in the middle of the night without another soul around it feels realistic. This film actually got me with at least one jump-scare, not so much because the jump-scare was well executed, but because the beginning of the scene had set a very tense mood.
The film is a whodunnit, however it actually doesn't give you a lot of suspects to sort through. I would've liked to see a few more characters in the mix. Plus the red herrings were far too obvious (maybe they weren't in 1981, but these days they certainly would be). The film does like to fool you though. Quite a bit of time is put into two separate scenes in order to completely mislead you as to what has happened. Not in any major way to the story either, just for the sake of it basically.
The kill scenes are quite fun in this movie which I enjoyed. A lot of effort actually goes into each one. It isn't as violent as you may expect though. Almost all of the violence takes place off camera. I also really enjoyed the theme music used when the killer is on screen. 80s themes were so unique, I'm a big fan of them.
The ending to this film was always going to be very important to my final opinion of it. Sadly the final 10-15 minutes are the weakest the film has to offer. It didn't make sense and it just fell very flat for me. The film up until then though was solid enough to get away with this and still keep it as one I'd recommend.
The film is a whodunnit, however it actually doesn't give you a lot of suspects to sort through. I would've liked to see a few more characters in the mix. Plus the red herrings were far too obvious (maybe they weren't in 1981, but these days they certainly would be). The film does like to fool you though. Quite a bit of time is put into two separate scenes in order to completely mislead you as to what has happened. Not in any major way to the story either, just for the sake of it basically.
The kill scenes are quite fun in this movie which I enjoyed. A lot of effort actually goes into each one. It isn't as violent as you may expect though. Almost all of the violence takes place off camera. I also really enjoyed the theme music used when the killer is on screen. 80s themes were so unique, I'm a big fan of them.
The ending to this film was always going to be very important to my final opinion of it. Sadly the final 10-15 minutes are the weakest the film has to offer. It didn't make sense and it just fell very flat for me. The film up until then though was solid enough to get away with this and still keep it as one I'd recommend.