Fade to Black (1980)

If you like the classics, bogart,monroe, brandon etc and also appreciate obscure horror like fulci, damato, ndeodato, chances are that you will fin this movie ubercool! i certainly did.

It's a pretty good film, it's odd but has nice a mix of comedy, horror & thriller. The first 30/35 minutes lay the backdrop for the things in the last hour of the film - and that last hour is a decent watch.Eric Binford is a guy obsessed with classic films of all genres. The love of his life is the famed actress Marilyn Monroe and he sees Marilyn O'Connor as Monroe. He's slowing "cracking up" when we are introduced to him... but as the film progresses we watch him fall deeper into madness. His obsession with the classic films turns deadly.Overall I enjoyed this film - it's not a great film, but it's not a bad film at all! Worth watching if you like horror movies.7/10

I'd agree that "Fade to Black" works better in theory than in this actual execution. It should have been more fun, and admittedly the hook IS quite delicious: what if an unstable film geek murdered those who mocked him, while dressed up as his favourite cinematic characters?The main problem is that our antihero, Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher), an employee for a film advertising firm, is not sympathetic in the slightest. This isn't a character whom you feel sorry for and root for so much as you want to smack him around. He's an ill-tempered, whiny wimp who attaches way too much importance to his knowledge of movie trivia.Then again, this may well have been the intention of writer / director Vernon Zimmerman. One of my Internet acquaintances once described "Fade to Black" as "showing the dark side of being a film geek". Eric seemingly can't relate to anybody on a normal level, instead thinking entirely in cinematic terms. As unlikable as Eric may be, however, it's hard to say whether the problem is in the character as written or any ineptitude on Christophers' part.Another thing that doesn't help are the scenes with the normally entertaining Tim Thomerson as a liberal minded police shrink. The character is a dolt and one doesn't want to root for HIM, either, even if he is sympathetic to Erics' plight.It's still a fairly enjoyable experience, at least for any cinephile. Amid all the movie references, clips from classics such as "White Heat" and "Creature from the Black Lagoon" are edited in with ease. And it's cool to see Eric dress up as Dracula, The Mummy, and Hopalong Cassidy, etc. while in the act of doing away with his nemeses.The good supporting cast includes Norman Burton, Morgan Paull, James Luisi, Eve Brent, John Steadman, Marcie Barkin, Peter Horton, and a swaggering young Mickey Rourke. The major bright spot is Australian beauty Linda Kerridge, a Marilyn Monroe lookalike who actually gets named Marilyn in the movie. As Erics' would be girlfriend, she shines.A nice music score by Craig Safan and a rousing face off on top of Manns' Chinese Theatre are also highlights.Six out of 10.

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.