Schizo (1977)

'Schizo' is a very fun slasher flick and delivers on the blood and gore all the way through. The schizo's name is William Haskin (Jack Weston), a middle aged man who is sent in a sudden rage when he reads his newspaper and sees a headline that makes him snap. That headline says 'Ice Queen to Wed', and is referring to the ice queen Samantha (Lynne Frederick), a prominent and well known figure skater. Samantha is planning on marrying a wealthy man and this does not set well for William, for reasons we don't know yet.William somehow gets into Samantha's wedding where he places a giant bloodied machete next to the wedding cake, maybe a sign of what's to come. From here, people who are close to Samantha are meeting their gruesome demise by all means of violence, including one scene i had to close my eyes in involving a sharp weapon and an eyeball. I cringe still thinking about it. With most movies like this, there is some sort of long relationship between the killer and the victim he is after, and throughout the film we are slowly give clues with twists and turns to figure out the true story.This is a fun slasher flick with all of the 70s guts and gore with some gratuitous nudity from Lynne Frederick. By all means you most likely will be able to predict the outcome of this film early on, but Pete Walker does a good job of keeping it tense and flowing along.

Psychological terror tale from popular British cult director Pete Walker concerning the effects of a supposedly paroled murderer on an ice skating pro, recently married to a garment factory boss.Lynne Frederick is Samantha, celebrated "Ice Queen" tormented by William Haskin(Jack Watson), the man convicted for the savage knife-stabbing of her mother. It seems as if Haskin's goal is to terrorize and kill Samantha, finishing what he started ten years prior to her mother. But, everything might not be as it seems and Samantha's newlywed husband, Alan(John Leyton)and gal pal, Beth(Stephanie Beacham, adding a bit of star power to the little thriller)are starting to question her sanity. When people Samantha knows start turning up dead, murdered in horrible ways(..sliced throat, hair pin through the eye, hammer clubbing to a skull), could she be next on the list? Director Pete Walker establishes a weird vibe, and his camera-work is tightly confined and, often, quite claustrophobic, shooting the cast really close, capturing nuances in the expressive faces of both Frederick and Watson, noting that often what is not shown is just as important as what is(..especially in the case of Samantha whose odd behavioral shifts are important to the overall story). The spine-chilling score, by Stanley Myers, adds just the right tone to the proceedings.Samantha's mood swings give Walker's movie an extra strange quality that only adds punch to the crazy twist. The motivation for the murders is pure Walker, a sordid sexual scenario sets off the horrors that will take place. One of Walker's more violent movies, and Frederick is nude several times to , both adding sizzle to his shocker. Something you'd might see on a chiller theater program, perfect midnight movie viewing. I'm guessing, Schizo is great drive-in fare. John Fraser is Samantha's reliable shrink and Queenie Watts her eccentric housekeeper, Mrs Wallace, both receiving gruesome fates. While Beacham has a secondary role, it's important as she sleuths for Samantha, hoping to put the whole "stalker" nonsense to rest, endangering herself in the process.

Forget any notions that the film is a serious look at schizophrenia, premier British 70s exploitation filmmaker Pete Walker's Schizo is a belated entry in the rash of British rip-offs of Psycho which appeared in the wake of Hitchcock's own medically dubious masterpiece (compare Berserk, Paranoiac etc.). Walker's film has a pretty young celebrity supposedly being stalked and members of her close circle bumped off by the sad-sack killer of her mother, released a couple of years ago from prison. But things are not all that they seem...The small genius of Walker's film is that it reverses the idea of who is the villain in contemporary Western society. Usually, the role is played by a lonely, middle-aged psychotic man who puts the beautiful young things at risk; in Schizo, he has been framed by the beautiful young celebrity herself, who suffers from a split personality - one moment she's all sweetness and light, the nation's favourite skating star and tabloid fodder; but beneath she's a murderous Ice Queen, jealous and capable of the utmost acts of brutality when faced with anything which upsets her equilibrium. There's a certain barmy truth in Walker's vision of with whom the danger really lies in our bleak post-industrial society. An intriguing sub-plot shows how religion or spiritual belief has been denigrated into a brotherhood of superstitious women, who haven't the foggiest idea of what is actually going on.Lynne Frederick - a celebrity who herself went supremely off-the-rails when left a cool £4.5 million as Peter Sellers' widow - is prophetically cast as the Ice Queen; and there's a wonderful supporting turn by the great Queenie Watts as the psychic-mongering help.Schizo is not one of Walker's best films - it doesn't reach the heights of lunacy of House of Whipcord or Frightmare, nor does it match the near-contemporary Italian giallos which is seeks at times to mimic; yet it has some games to play with notions of villainy in tabloid cultures.

Pete Walker and his loyal scriptwriter David McGillivray were pretty much England's most controversial duo of filmmakers back in the glorious seventies. Opposite to Hammer's and Amicus' successful but politically correct horror movies, these two provided the British (and other) genre fans with provocative and violent films, stuffed with social criticism and obscene undertones. Their movies ("Frightmare", "House of Whipcord"...) aren't genius, but at least they always have originality and a handful of effective shock-moments. Same goes for this "Schizo", which remarkably blends an innovating slasher premise with some of the genre's oldest and most delightful clichés. Newly married ice-skating champion Samantha is stalked by the frustrated and pitiful lover of her murdered mother. Even though the the guy makes no real secret of his identity and even though his perpetrating attempts are amateurish, Samantha has great difficulties convincing her entourage she's in danger. "Schizo" basically is a simplistic horror movie (up till a certain point, at least), but it's praiseworthy how Walker & McGillivray make efforts to throw in psychological terror twists. The extended fright-scenes are well mounted and the make up effects are quite nasty despite the low budget production values. As usual in Pete Walker's movies, there's a twisted and very ingenious shock ending that marvelously illustrates the director's aversion to political correctness. Highly recommended!