He Knows You're Alone

I admit, that if ever there was a sucker for bad slasher movies, I'd be it. I have an irrational fondness for them dating back to the first time I saw Halloween. Actually this 1980 film borrows more than a little from John Carpenter's classic, which even some minor hints of Friday the 13th (in staging, not mood). It's about a psyhopathic killer who murders girls a few days before they are to be married. It attempts an intersting technique by sort of showing the killer early on (it's not a mystery or a masked menace), though mostly in half-shadow or reflection and rarely straight on, like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. I doesn't really work, but I admire it for trying something. There are a handful of competently successful suspense sequences, including the opener in a movie theater where some chick gets killed while watching a, y'know, horror film. If nothing else it may be remembered as Tom Hanks' debut film.