The Wind (1986)

Strong and Moving!

Just perfect...

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Oh Dear Me !! What a flop !! A very mishy-mashy half-assed attempt at a kind of slasher movie with the wild-eyed Meg Foster. She, Robert Morley and David McCallum must have been in real need of money to agree to take roles in this dopey flick which should have lasted maximum a half hour ~ the rest is padding nonsense. And, come to think of it, David McCallum's part was not at all essential. You knew immediately the slasher character came on camera that he meant big-time trouble and that the woman should have got the hell out of there, damn fast!! NOT a good film. I give it 3/10 for Meg Foster's eyes and for the 6 minutes that entertained me "

"The Wind" or it's much better title which I viewed it under "The Edge Of Terror" is an OK movie, although I was lured by the DVD'S interesting artwork, which made this movie look like a body count, but it's not although there are some deaths, 3 in fact but they aren't anything special very bloodless and quite limp.The storyline is quite interesting where we get a novelist named Sian Anderson leaves her L.A. pad to travel to a remote Greek island to write her new book, unaware that her fellow neighbour and handyman is about to snap and begin a murder spree. Although this movie picks up a decent pace, it's just the so called wind wasn't as dramatic as it should have been, and despite the decent enough pace this movie still tends to drag in places like before the climax and although the chase scenes are pretty good it just wasn't tense enough for my taste and some of the moments that should have been shocking just wasn't horrific enough.Well there is a lot to like about this movie firstly the cast are interesting namely Meg Foster who plays the lead character, a very underrated actress who should be more well known and she does a great job here and carries the movie on her shoulders effortlessly and Robert Morley was quite fun as the pompus landlord and Wings Hauser as the maniac did okay, but not quite menacing enough though but he did pretty good.All in all "The Edge Of Terror" is pretty tame thriller with some decent moments but not enough to shine, and the pointless scenes that are just there to pad out the running time, like when the honeymoon couple show up stranded, they should have got murdered, now that would have been a great climax, so not a bad film by any means, just don't expect a full on slasher movie or you will be disappointed.

I assume Greek people have a thing for wind… The popular Greek singer Demis Roussos dedicated a worldwide hit to the weather phenomenon entitled "My Friend the Wind" and the Greek writer/director Nico Mastorakis even revolved a full-length thriller on plain ordinary wind. Mastorakis is known by avid cult/horror fanatics because he made "Island of Death" in 1977, which is one of the most notorious and universally banned movies ever. Not because it's the bloodiest or most disturbing film, but mainly because it's full of perversion and depraved imaginations, like someone doing very anti-catholic things with a baby goat. In the mid-80's, Mastorakis emigrated to the United States and directed a handful of less controversial and semi-successful thrillers, like "Blind Date", "The Zero Boys" and the utterly bonkers "Nightmare at Noon". "The Wind" is a rapidly in-between made straight-to-video effort in which Mastorakis takes his protagonists back to his beloved home country Greece for a very conventional and unsurprising, but nevertheless entertaining cat-and-mouse thriller. Meg Foster, with eyes so crystal blue they glow in the dark, stars as the pseudo-eccentric mystery writer Sian Anderson who travels to a remote and extremely isolated Greek coastal town to work on a new novel in solitude. The town is practically abandoned due to the season and there's a constant heavy and ominous wind blowing from the sea. Sian witnesses how the mentally unstable handyman Phil murders her landlord Elias Appleby and buries his corpse in the garden. From then onwards, she finds herself stalked and threatened by the crazed psychopath but there's nowhere or no one to run to. As said, "The Wind" is a very prototypic and forgettable thriller, but it contains a few noteworthy suspense sequences and more than adequate performances from an terrific cast. Meg Foster is amiable as the damsel in distress and Wing Hauser gloriously goes over-the-top again as the sneering psychopath. The supportive cast is impressive as well with names such as David McCallum, Steve Railsbeck and even classic actor Robert Morley. Even though Hauser's character commits his murders with a sharp and over-sized sickle, fans of gory horror flicks might be disappointed as there's very little bloodshed. The pacing of the film is very uneven and the climax sequence is incredibly stupid, yet still I can't bring myself to rate "The Wind" negatively as I wasn't bored for a minute.

Director Nico Mastorakis (Island of Death) returns to the horror genre and the Greek Isles with the suspenseful and intense The Wind. A slight mixture of the slasher, cat & mouse and giallo genres, The Wind looks great, thanks mostly to the imposing Greek locale high on the edge of a cliff. Mastorakis wastes no time jumping right into the action with writer Anderson (Meg Foster) encountering fellow American Phil (Hauser) within minutes of her arrival. When Foster explains she is a mystery writer, Hauser creepily quips, "If you need to know anything about death, I'm right next door." As the nights events progress, the viewer is kept wondering if all that has been happening is just figments of a writer's overactive imagination.As with most horror films, the success lies squarely on the shoulders of the villain and, thankfully, Mastorakis has Hauser to fill this role. Hauser gives a whacked out performance on the level of his killer pimp turn in the sleaze classic Vice Squad (1982). Whether it is huffing poppers or making threatening phone calls, Wings is in top form in this film. It is truly a shame that his talents aren't fully recognized by the mainstream. Foster provides a worthy adversary to Hauser's unhinged Phil, but there are a few moments that smack of falsity here (namely a few of her one liners). Railsback pops up about two-thirds of the way through as a sailor who helps the police investigate. It is almost a cameo-sized role, but he is good in it and helps spur the ideas that Foster may be making this up.If the film does have any faults, it is an entirely useless subplot involving a honeymooning American couple. While the point (they almost provide safe haven for Foster) was not lost on this viewer, it seemed a bit contrived and seems like an attempt to pad the film. Regardless, The Wind is still an intense and stylish 90 minutes that is definitely worth a watch.