Runtime: 102 minutes
Directed by: Vernon Zimmerman
Starring: Dennis Christopher, Tim Thomerson, Gwynne Gilford, Linda Kerridge.. and Mickey Rourke!
From: Movie Ventures
This will be a surprisingly topical review.
To be honest I already have a shortlist of what horror movies will be seen at the end of the month and naturally, not everything from that will be watched. Choosing what to and not view is always a difficult one; in this case, I have known of the movie for at least a few years now as it has a unique hook. What gave me the push was that I can reference two things which trended on Twitter in the past few days. For some reason, last afternoon Marilyn Monroe was trending and I never discovered why-at least it gave random people the opportunity to sing her praises and post some photos. A key plot point here is the lead's obsession with the iconic star of yesteryear and a young platinum blonde from Australia who is a struggling actress and of course has a faint resemblance to Marilyn. The second... more lewd but I'll get to that at the end.
This movie follows Eric, a guy who at first I am sure nerds like us will appreciate as he is a superfan of cinema... posters and photos all over the place, constant viewings of movies, and so forth. However, it isn't long before it is clear that this guy is not well mentally-he is incredibly awkward, weird, looks quite disheveled, and is a foul-up-as others have noted, think along the lines of Travis Bickle. With any luck, everyone reading this has it more together than this poor schmuck, although some random “film fans” on Twitter do give me pause... anyway, this is even before he snaps and starts killing people in deaths inspired by scenes from movies of yesteryear. One is based on a famous film noir moment and another is a blatant copy is a spoof of a legendary character death but those setpieces are all at least inspired by old-time pictures.
Fade to Black is unfortunately quite uneven and it isn't as great as you might suspect for a plot that sounded so golden. Be that as it may, while the execution is perhaps lacking at times, overall I can still say this was fine. Dennis Christopher definitely portrayed a character that became increasingly unhinged. For people like us it will be fun to see all the film clips used, all the references, all the posters, all the photos-in addition, it will help if you are familiar w/ the likes of White Heat and the original Kiss of Death; Eric loves both Cody Jarrett and Tommy Udo.
There is plenty to see if you love looking at Los Angeles in the late 70's/early 80's and this has some familiar faces... Tim Thomerson is a police psychologist who does not get along with his boss (I'll call his superior Not Henry Silva) as the character is a hippie who sniffs coke while jammin' away on the harmonica while in his room at the police station! There's also Peter Horton in a scene and a supporting role is played by Mickey Rourke, whose character was a real bully. The kill scenes are all at least interesting and different setpieces that are different from the norm.
I can also reference disgraced legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin in this review; before seeing this I had heard that there was a scene where Eric “flogged the dolphin” while looking at a photo of Monroe; this is true. He does pull a Toobin and engages in some self-gratification while looking at that picture... and Halloween happens to be on TV at the time. In another moment that tickled me pink, a key segment happens at a premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and of all movies, it's of Coal Miner's Daughter. No celebrities are shown but I'll chuckle thinking of Sissy Spasek and Tommy Lee Jones watching on as those events transpire, and that premiere inevitably gets canceled.
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