Visiting Hours
Misogyny has often been said to be a VERY common and underlying factor in the horror / slasher subgenre, especially when it comes to the factor that since yes, people are brutally murdered in slashers, but usually the males (if there are any) are treated to quick, perfunctory deaths while the females (several of whom are shown either getting naked or being depicted as engaged in sex prior) are treated to especially nasty demises many times with an exceptional amount of screaming on their part. The interesting thing is that this way of showing things is usually an artistic decision on the part of the director as opposed to being anything related to the actual motive of the killer himself. While this underlying element remains a part of horror movies to this day, only a very small number of cinematic psycho killers have utilized a blatant hatred of women as their primary motif / gimmick much in the same way that Freddy’s glove or Jason’s hockey mask symbolize and epitomize who they are. A prime example (maybe THE prime example for all time) would be the killer from this 1982 slasher shot in the film tax incentive paradise of Canada, a release that (unlike many Canadian filmed features) found an audience outside of that country due mostly to a superb cast (considering the genre) and a notoriously brutal reputation that landed it a spot on the dreaded “video nastys” list that led to it being banned in The U.K. and several other countries. In the role of its woman hating killer, they certainly found a marquee name to play it in the form of legendary bad guy actor Michael Ironside, so sinister in such films as Scanners and Total Recall and still one of those actors who carry their own personal cult following wherever they go and in whatever films they appear in to this day. Ironside’s Colt Hawker is a high tension psychotic loner who enjoys squeezing his rubber stress ball in order to calm himself down and whose hatred of the opposite sex is derived partially from a longstanding childhood hatred of his own mother coupled with his own tragic condition of being terminally impotent (i.e. inability to get or maintain an erection) even as he appears to have at least a passing interest in bondage and a tendency to get rough even with women whom he doesn’t intend to kill (no surprise since the connection between men who engage in BDSM and impotence is well known and documented). But what really sets him off comes in the form of 4 time Academy Award Nominee and 1 time Winner Lee Grant (who as one can tell is obviously too good for a movie like this) as a popular and respected feminist talk show host who has recently taken up the cause for a battered wife convicted of murder for shooting her abusive husband, promising to make arrangements for her to get a new trial and encouraging her viewers to also pick up the torch as well. Ironside (who apparently works as a stagehand at her show although this is not immediately made clear) quickly flies into a rage at the thought of this strong and proud woman using her fame to further a good cause and sets about with a late night assault on her home, attacking her, cutting her with a knife and injuring her before the cops show up and he is forced to flee. Grant is taken to the local hospital and when Ironside finds out where she is, he heads there to finish the job that he started at any cost. The good thing about this movie is mostly based around not only Ironside’s intense performance (is he ever not?) but also in the commendable effort by the screenplay to fully flesh out and develop his character, one who is by no means likable (and pretty much doesn’t even deserve to live amongst society) but at least in Ironside’s capable hands gets some sparse moments that can be captivating to watch. It turns out that besides hating women, he is also an unashamed racist and anti Semite with a history of writing nutso letters of protest to various media organizations which usually go ignored (rightfully so) but nonetheless he still keeps framed copies of his various hate letters on the walls of his apartment (when asked by one character if what he really wants is to have the whole world just to himself, he answers in the affirmative without even a hint of irony). He is also shown taking care of his elderly father in a nursing home (while always reminding him that his hated mother is long gone) and the only other person in the world who seems to care about him is his dotty old landlady (whom he coldly blows off every time he sees her to which she chalks up to him being “shy”). As for Grant, she appears to be going somewhere with her upright feminist character, but eventually her performance sadly descends into a series of ridiculously overwrought panic attacks as she rants on about how her attacker (whom the police have written off as being a burglar) is still coming after her and will find his way into the hospital sooner or later. Fortunately, the hospital setting allows us to be introduced to her compassionate nurse played with an absolutely perfectly shaped pout by Linda Purl (one of those actresses with a legitimately hot career in the early to mid 80s who eventually petered out as time went on), a single mother whom Ironside (slipping in and out of the hospital) notices having a protective instinct towards her famous and frightened patient so he decides to start stalking her also as well as her kids and babysitter. The problem though is in the way that Ironside (who is so nuts that he doesn’t even seem to care if he gets caught just so long as he carries out his “mission” and maybe even get famous for it) starts slipping himself in and out of the hospital in various guises including that of an orderly, an EMT and even an doctor and nobody (especially the incompetant hospital security) seems to catch on as to why this strange guy whom nobody knows always seems to be around at all times for no reason. Ironside’s MO is particularly sick though as seen in an early scene in the movie on one of his first sojourns into the hospital where he enters a room where there is an elderly old woman on an oxygen tube and he (mistaking her for Grant who is his intended target) cuts the tube which then cuts off her air supply and upon going behind the curtain and seeing that it’s not the person whom he wanted to kill, just calmly sits at her bedside and takes pictures of her sad, contorted dying face as she expires, also brutally slashing a nurse who comes in to check on her before he leaves (Ironside gets off scot free for this one as it’s explained that the old woman had a lot of money and a lot of relatives who are more likely suspects). The problem is that he keeps sneaking back into the hospital under various lame disguises to try to get at Grant (who knows his face) and usually he somehow finds a reason to kill at least one unrelated innocent patient and / or hospital employee each time before sneaking back out with the police finally getting wise to the idea that this rampaging hospital killer might be the same person as Grant’s home attacker looking for revenge well over halfway through the movie (and yet still he keeps escaping without anyone having so much as a possible ID, security camera footage or even a police sketch artist rendition courtesy of Grant). Then in some stunt casting to the extreme, we also have William Shatner(!) on hand (in the midst of his Star Trek movie run) as Grant’s boss / on again off again boyfriend (and apparently the only male friend of any kind that she has) who shows up every couple of scenes to visit her or to offer some encouraging words but despite the ambitious effort in casting, Shatner winds up being the most useless character in the film (one starts to wonder if HE might be impotent) so those hoping to see a Shatner-Ironside showdown (well worth the price of admission) or just a good old fashioned James T. Kirk ass whipping will be sorely disappointed in what happens here, leaving the heavy lifting to Ironside’s effective villainy as he tracks both Grant’s talk show host and Purl’s nurse all to continue to feed his insidious hatred of womankind which comes to resemble his horror movie villain gimmick, a normal looking guy who is truly a hideous bastard when it comes to not only going after innocent women, but also greatly delighting in killing any unlucky folks who are in the wrong place at the wrong time for reasons as simple as they just happened to be in the room that he snuck into to hide, a random type of horror that can be all too real for some…
5/10