Truly Dreadful Film

Simply A Masterpiece

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Wanting to be a film director, a cab driver travels to the Cannes Film Festival in France with the hope of luring a top genre actress to appear in his horror film but once he finds himself spurned by the industry there sets out to get revenge on everyone as he tries to make his movie.This was quite the intriguing affair. What gives this a lot to really like with this one is the way in which it warps the decadent and flamboyant lifestyle of moviemaking at the time. This one goes into detail with the lavish lifestyle present in prestige motion pictures with the opening detailing the various nightclubs, parties and backstage deals that wound up generating a great deal of attention to the agents and producers at the time. As the maniac goes about throughout the whole festival guerilla-style in the meantime, it creates a wholly intriguing counterpoint that gives this a nice starting point to go on. Likewise, this one really gets a lot to like with the physical torment dished out to the psycho as he goes about fantasizing about his potential career. The various dreams and visions he keeps being subjected to, from being a director on-set to the various dreams of those encounters spurning him or trying to kill him manage to feature frequently for the film to generate some solid suspenseful moments here. That's more than can be said for the rest of the stalking scenes here, from the attack in the movie theater to the series of stalking scenes he employs against her to try to get her into his movie which manages to interject some life into the film. That leads into the fine finale where he plays up the deranged filmmaking attributes in a loving, over-the-top manner which is somewhat fun and cheesy with the way it all plays out. These here hold it up over its rather detrimental issues. The main issue with this one is the fact that it's just impossible to care about anything that transpires from the main character. He's just like any other delusion wannabe artist who thinks that obsession and fandom automatically means he's granted whatever he wants to those who he feels owe him his dreams but in reality know nothing about him. His constant screaming rants and psychotic stalking behavior that occurs throughout the film as he manages to hound nearly everyone at the festival makes him out to be such a deluded personality that it's nearly impossible to follow him on his journey. That's also aided along by the film's biggest problem in that it's just so utterly frenzied and frantic in its performance that it never really gets any kind of worthwhile suspense generated. There's never any kind of a consistent tone established here with the change in direction from the glamorous film-shoots and photo-ops with the frenzied psychotic stalker behavior and then carrying the different ambush attacks on the others which are so sporadic it doesn't register as a truly full-on slasher at times. Otherwise, there wasn't much else to this one.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Nudity.

A taxi driver is dangerously obsessed by a horror movie actress. He travels to Cannes to convince her to star in the movie he fantasises he is going to direct. A series of killings start.On the face of it this is one of the many films from the early 80's slasher cycle. However, it's hardly typical of that genre. Sure, it has the usual slasher ingredients – lots of gory violence and lots of semi-nude girls – but overall the tone is quite different. There is a definite comic feel to this one. Much of that is down to lead actor Joe Spinell who plays the deranged taxi driver. Spinell is a good enough actor to make, what could easily be a very unlikable character, sympathetic. His interplay with his mother is also kind of funny and I suppose is a jokey take on the stereotypical mother-fixated psychopaths from these types of movies. Joe's delusional world view is illustrated with segments that blur fantasy and reality. We see him as a ludicrous tuxedoed famous director interspersed with the scenes of his grim reality. All of this stuff gives The Last Horror movie a definite difference from other movies with similar scenarios.The film also stars Caroline Munro as the famous scream queen. And she looks pretty striking with her black and white mane of hair. Interestingly she is making a movie called 'Scream' and this was way before Wes Craven came up with his post-modern slasher. In fact, you could argue that this very film was playing around with a few of the ideas that Craven would use over a decade later to great commercial success. After all, this is a film that playfully points out the conventions of the slasher film while still essentially delivering various methods of bloody murder. What was also pleasing was the way that The Last Horror film winds things up with a pretty decent ending that wasn't obvious. So, all in all, this has to be considered one of the more innovative slasher flicks of the 80's.

Vinny Durand(Joe Spinell)is a New York cab driver who lives with his loving mum and dreams of becoming a famous film director.He is obsessed with horror icon Jana Bates(Caroline Munro)and follows her to Cannes where he will try to convince her to star in his first horror movie.When members of her film crew begin to die suspicion falls on Vinny.Is he responsible for the murders or is this all a giant publicity stunt?"The Last Horror Film" is nowhere nearly as gory and gruesome as "Maniac".It has many references to Spinell's personal life for example the film was shot in Joe Spinell's apartment,where he actually lived and ultimately died in 1989.The gore effects include for example a bathroom throat slashing and following decapitation and chainsaw dismemberment.The script is quite sincere and original,so if you have a chance give "The Last Horror Film" a look.8 out of 10.

The Last Horror Film (1982) is about a sweaty and sleazy New Yorker named Vinnie (Joe Spinell) who's totally infatuated with a B-movie starlet (Caroline Munro). He claims that he's going to make a "masterpiece" with her as the star. Vinnie has very strong psychotic tendencies and drips with sweaty ooze. The film-makers had no idea what to do with Spinell in this picture. Basically, it was an expensive shot-on-the-spot film. The movie had a huge budget (compared to the classic Maniac) and half the wit and charm. How can a director go wrong with Spinell hamming up the joint? Well, these guys did. Bad movie.Pseudo sequel to Maniac. A.K.A. Fanatic.