Fade to Black (1980)

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Eric Binford (Christopher) is obsessed with movies. His entire life is surrounded by them including his job working in a film vault. Eric lives at home with his Aunt Stella (Brent) who is in a wheelchair. Eric spends his time watching movies on a projector in his room which is covered with movie posters and stills and movie memorabilia. Movies are Eric's escape from reality which he doesn't do too well with. He is constantly picked on at work and yelled at by his cranky boss. One day he meets a woman (Kerridge) who is a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe and makes a date with her in which she unintentionally stands him up. One night Aunt Stella is on his case and breaks his projector and Eric snaps. Acting out a scene from a classic film he dumps his Aunt wheelchair and all down the stairs. This psychotic break from reality has Eric start acting out scenes from movies and taking his revenge out on any one who has wronged him. Dracula, Hopalong Cassidy, the Mummy and a Gangster are just some of the parts he plays as he goes about killing those who deserve it. The climax takes part on top of the Chinese theater like in the film "White Heat". Binford is someone we all can identify with. He is a great film fan but a complete misfit in everyday life. There is this tragic tone that beats at the heart of this movie all the way to its end. Eric doesn't know where to stop and this becomes a big problem as reality slips away and the movies take over. Binford actually thinks the woman he has met is really Marilyn Monroe. Dennis Christopher is excellent as Eric Binford and his performance is a big part of the success of this film. Director Vernon Zimmerman effectively splices scenes from the real movies Eric is thinking about when he goes out to kill. The second act of the film is very fun with Binford dressing up and carrying out his weird brand of revenge. The best scene and the most suspenseful one is when he attacks his boss at night in the darkened film vault dressed like the Mummy. The plot is clever and very fun with lots of irony and black humor. The only real misstep is the writer character (Thomerson) trying to track Eric. This is a distraction and really was unneeded. Fade to Black is never really that scary but it is so quirky and fun most horror fans will get a real thrill from it.

The story is as follows: This movie obsessed kid living with his wheelchair mother slash aunt who drives movie reels around Hollywood for a living gets to meet a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like girl whose name also is Marilyn and who dresses like Marilyn and behaves like Marilyn and whose idol is Marilyn...well, you get the idea. For some reason she finds the boy "somewhat cute" and they have a movie date. Problem is she doesn't show up for the date because she simply forgets it, being distracted with another boy. He don't like that one bit and after his mother slash aunt pushes him over the edge and he pushes her and her wheelchair over the edge the guy goes haywire and he dresses up like movie characters (see poster) to kill various people who he don't like one bit like his boss or young Mickey Rourke who pushes him around and doesn't pay him the money he owes him for losing a "what's Humphrey Bogart's full name in Casablanca" bet.We also get to know a psychiatrist slash cop who's investigating in the case and who gets closer with the female cop he's working with and who has to hold his ground against his "let's just kill all criminals" tough cop boss and which is really boring and unnecessary. As the movie gets into slasher mode and the main character more and more often believes he is James Cagney in 'White Heat' (apparently his favorite movie) the viewer gets permission to stop carrying about anyone because the movie failed to establish enough sympathy for anyone in the first half which was brim full with direct movie references and name dropping but didn't have enough originality to really be engaging. It also doesn't help that the guy's insane laugh after every kill becomes annoyingly repetitive. We get a final in front, inside, and even on top of the Chinese Theater, which partly recreates the 'White Heat' final and incorporates our Marilyn so at least we have something to jerk off to.It isn't an awful film, the movie references (including films only film buffs would know) are an attraction for any film buff and potentially the movie fan viewer easily is able to relate to the psycho killer main character, it just fails to really succeed on any level as a compelling movie. If you want to see a film about a movie fanatic who loses touch with reality and thinks he is a murderous character in a movie seek out 'Finding Interest' (1994) instead.

What seemed to be a promising horror movie with a good plot turned out to be a sour lemon. Fade To Black is a typical slow paced horror movie about a young man taking his love of classic movies too far and his infatuation with Marilyn Monroe way too far. I'll admit the characters the lead man transformed into were well brought out and make up wise very good. Acted out however is a completely different story. The only reason I saw this movie is I bought the double feature disc that also has the classic Hell Night which was much better than this sorry excuse of a movie. Sorry to be bashing a horror movie, which is a rare thing I since I love horror movies, but the make up effects alone were not enough to save this movie from taking the plunge to my Bad Movie list. If you get the double feature disc, watch Hell Night and avoid the Fade To Black on the other side.

Why did I write that first line? Because to a small extent we all deal with anger over our lives-whether good or bad. Yeah, we deal with fear and frustration and self doubt. This film is about what happens when a tormented soul (who has no coping mechanisms and no self esteem or sense of Ego and Super Ego)goes "Id"--as Freud would have it "The Patient is in the throws of his Id, incapable of rational control of his angry behavior and his rage at being an impotent(as a functioning person, not sexually)bystander in his own life" Eric IS a bystander in his own life--which is a Twilight Zone episode gone awry. His descent into madness happened WAAAAAAAY before the film begins, and it only goes deeper into insanity as the film progresses. Tim Thomerson disappoints me in this--I loved him in just about everything he's ever done(except "The Wrong Guys")-- but here he is a disgrace to himself(he must have needed a paycheck really badly!) Mickie Rourke comes across as a preview of who he would morph into as he got older and was given more films. The plot is simple:revenge or die! The execution of the plot is flawed The finale, is ludicrous BUT the character study of Christophewr's Eric is a Freudian and Jungian DELIGHT