The Last Horror Film (1982)

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.

Deranged, obsessive and delusional psycho cab driver Vinny Durand (a gloriously crazed and off the wall performance by Joe Spinell) fantasizes about being a great famous director. Vinny goes to the Cannes Film Festival and stalks horror actress Jenna Bates (a perfectly cast Caroline Munro). Folks close to Jenna start getting bumped off in various gruesome ways. Is Vinny the killer? Director/co-writer David Winters soaks up the heady and raucous festive atmosphere with tremendous aplomb, relates the engrossing story at a constant snappy pace, and gives Spinell free reign to totally ham it up in a rare substantial lead role. Moreover, the murder set pieces deliver the gory goods, with a hot tub electrocution, a throat slashing, and a juicy decapitation by chainsaw rating as the definite grisly highlights. Better still, we even get a bunch of hot chicks baring their breasts with pleasing regularity and a deliriously trashy throbbing rock soundtrack. June Chadwick and Robin Leach briefly appear as reporters while such people as Karen Black and Cathy Lee Crosby can be quickly glimpsed as themselves. There's even a nice subtext about illusion vs. reality and a heavy theme on how movie violence possibly influences people to do horrible things (there are then timely and topical references to John Hinkley's bungled assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan and the shooting of John Lennon). Of course, Spinell's sweaty histrionics are the key attraction here and Big Joe certainly doesn't disappoint with his eye-rolling turn as one totally nutso dude (the scenes with his real-life mother Filomena Spagnuolo in particular are absolutely hysterical). The scene where Vinny chases Jenna through a hotel lobby gets mistaken for a publicity stunt by onlookers is genuinely clever. The fake-out ending is very cool as well; the closing scene with Vinny and his overbearing mom is hilarious. Tom Denvoe's bright cinematography gives the picture an appropriately glittery look. The shuddery and spirited score by Jeff Koz and Jesse Frederick likewise hits the spot. A fun piece of junk.

I don't know about a film that starts off with a man (Joe Spinell) pleasuring himself in a movie theater as an inflated babe (J'Len Winters) gets electrocuted in a hot tub.This film brings back Spinell and Caroline Munro, who made Maniac two years prior.In this film Vinny (Spinell) is a taxi driver and wannabe director that stalks Jana Bates (Munro) at Cannes trying to get her in his film. Thing is, people around Jana are dying and she is receiving ominous notes. Is it Vinny? Set in Cannes, you can be sure that there is an overabundance of boobage. There are more tatas than blood. Vinney is getting nowhere as his New York cabbie appearance doesn't get him in any doors at Cannes.So the whole film is Vinney trying to get in touch with Jana with the background of a film festival.You've seen enough to know how this is going to end.Good job by Joe Spinell, but there just wasn't enough to keep the interest for a full 87 minutes.

Last Horror Film, The (1982) ** (out of 4) 1980's Maniac was such a hit that producer's wanted a sequel to follow but the director didn't go for that so the producer's went off and made this film that re-teamed Caroline Munro and Joe Spinell. A psychotic taxi driver (Spinell) travels to France to track down his favorite horror star (Munro) so that she'll appear in his latest film. When he can't get close to her he decides to start killing off the people around her. This film had a horrible shoot due to several reasons and some of them show on screen. There are many fascinating ideas thrown around the film but sadly the very poor direction by David Winters really kills things. The idea of a fan killing people and filming it to turn it into a horror film was a nice touch. Another nice touch was adding questions about the controversy of horror films and the effect they have on the public. Both Spinell and Munro are pretty bland in the film but I'm sure a better director would have gotten a bit more out of them. On DVD under the title Fanatic.