I watch this movie occasionally for nostalgic value, as I'm in love with the idea of it, more than the film itself. It's really all that made it to the screen, in the case of Vernon Zimmerman's Fade to Black.
It's an oddity in so many ways --- Zimmerman was a fairly well-respected innovator of slightly-off B-movies, somewhere left of Roger Corman; and Christopher, a smashing emotive actor, just coming off a BAFTA for his indelible turn in Breaking Away. What happened?
I suspect the film's lead producer, Irwin Yablans, had a hand in muddying the vision, but have only stories of his "suggestions" about incorporating elements of a prior script that he had written (?!) when Zimmerman approached him with the idea for FTB. You have to remember that in 1980, Yablans cash-cow, Halloween, had barely become the classic that it is today, being released in 1978 on a relatively small scale, only becoming a phenomenon a few years later.
Fade To Black's unevenness reeks of rewrite-city, starting out as a perceptive, deeply involving character piece of movie obsessed loner Eric Binford, who's been dealt every rotten hand in life's playbook. When he gets up the nerve to approach Linda Kerridge's Marilyn Monroe lookalike character, sparks fly. The two have a nice chemistry that could have maintained the strong emotional throughline this film badly needs.
There are other strong supporting performances, among them Eve Brent, who manages to balance her otherwise over-the-top line readings with facial cues revealing true pathos, and Mickey Rourke delivering his second screen turn with a fierce visceral flare, even when his lines are dopey. Up through an amazing first kill, it's an intriguing film. After that, it quickly devolves into Yablans' patented hack-em-and-sack em formula that ruined Halloween II (among other factors) and it's many pointless sequels. Yablans, even in interviews, made it plain for years that he has no real interest in film other than in the revenues they produce.
Kerridge is saddled with a lunkheaded Psycho spoof and then is off-camera for a good half hour, along with any real trace of Binford's inner turmoil.
That's not to say this film isn't worth your time --- the more you're into movies and horror in particular, the more you'll love it. If nothing else, the murders are interesting and occasionally superb in their brutality, matching Christopher's tornado-like fury --- or they collapse, tottering on bad crutches like fuzzy slow-mo. And there are a few great moments --- one where Eric looks into a make-up mirror, creating a surreal triptych, along with the now infamous split-face painting scene, that are breathtaking in their audacity.
What puts the nail in Fade to Black's coffin as a classic B-flick horror, though, is the entire absurd premise that "films are causing kids to go psycho", and the huge amount of time wasted on the Cop subplot --- helmed by marginal to inept actors (Tim Thomerson virtually wreaks this film with his pseudo indignant soap-opera schtick).
But look on the bright side. If John Carpenter had yielded to similar script compromises on Halloween '78 --- a film that was anything but formulaic and predictable at the time --- where would we be now?
Oh yeah. Crazy. I almost forgot.
It's an oddity in so many ways --- Zimmerman was a fairly well-respected innovator of slightly-off B-movies, somewhere left of Roger Corman; and Christopher, a smashing emotive actor, just coming off a BAFTA for his indelible turn in Breaking Away. What happened?
I suspect the film's lead producer, Irwin Yablans, had a hand in muddying the vision, but have only stories of his "suggestions" about incorporating elements of a prior script that he had written (?!) when Zimmerman approached him with the idea for FTB. You have to remember that in 1980, Yablans cash-cow, Halloween, had barely become the classic that it is today, being released in 1978 on a relatively small scale, only becoming a phenomenon a few years later.
Fade To Black's unevenness reeks of rewrite-city, starting out as a perceptive, deeply involving character piece of movie obsessed loner Eric Binford, who's been dealt every rotten hand in life's playbook. When he gets up the nerve to approach Linda Kerridge's Marilyn Monroe lookalike character, sparks fly. The two have a nice chemistry that could have maintained the strong emotional throughline this film badly needs.
There are other strong supporting performances, among them Eve Brent, who manages to balance her otherwise over-the-top line readings with facial cues revealing true pathos, and Mickey Rourke delivering his second screen turn with a fierce visceral flare, even when his lines are dopey. Up through an amazing first kill, it's an intriguing film. After that, it quickly devolves into Yablans' patented hack-em-and-sack em formula that ruined Halloween II (among other factors) and it's many pointless sequels. Yablans, even in interviews, made it plain for years that he has no real interest in film other than in the revenues they produce.
Kerridge is saddled with a lunkheaded Psycho spoof and then is off-camera for a good half hour, along with any real trace of Binford's inner turmoil.
That's not to say this film isn't worth your time --- the more you're into movies and horror in particular, the more you'll love it. If nothing else, the murders are interesting and occasionally superb in their brutality, matching Christopher's tornado-like fury --- or they collapse, tottering on bad crutches like fuzzy slow-mo. And there are a few great moments --- one where Eric looks into a make-up mirror, creating a surreal triptych, along with the now infamous split-face painting scene, that are breathtaking in their audacity.
What puts the nail in Fade to Black's coffin as a classic B-flick horror, though, is the entire absurd premise that "films are causing kids to go psycho", and the huge amount of time wasted on the Cop subplot --- helmed by marginal to inept actors (Tim Thomerson virtually wreaks this film with his pseudo indignant soap-opera schtick).
But look on the bright side. If John Carpenter had yielded to similar script compromises on Halloween '78 --- a film that was anything but formulaic and predictable at the time --- where would we be now?
Oh yeah. Crazy. I almost forgot.