Fade to Black (1980)


I am obviously a movie fan.  I spend a good amount of time watching them, even though more and more it seems like it's specifically for review purposes rather than outright enjoyment.  That's a shame, but I seem to approach music the same way.  I enjoy it but the sheer volume of which I consume it may lead one to think it is a bit excessive.  

Despite this I will argue against anyone who attempts to say movies influence real-life behavior.  Someone already has to be pretty far gone to not be able to distinguish fantasy from reality.  Not to say that movies don't breed misconceptions about how real things are.  Still, that should not blur things to the point that someone becomes homicidal over something as silly as movie trivia.  

Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher) is a movie fanatic who lives with his overbearing Aunt Stella (Eve Brent), who does not share his obsession.  In fact, she loathes it and loathes him, a feeling he returns.  Because of the troubles at home he has trouble at his job despite the fact that he works for a film archive.  However, despite all odds, he meets an Australian woman named Marilyn O'Connor (Linda Kerridge) who bears a resemblance to another, more famous Marilyn, and she shows a genuine interest in him. 

Problem is they miss their connection and, with Binford's reality already blurring, things come to a head between him and his aunt.  He kills the old lady, but that's just the beginning.  He begins dressing up as characters from his favorite movies and taking revenge on people who have wronged him, including a bullying coworker and a producer that stole his film idea.  Dr. Jerry Moriarty (Tim Thomerson), a psychologist helping out at a branch of the Los Angeles police, teams up with Officer Anne Oshenbull (Gwynne Gilford) to find the killer, attempting to reason with Eric before the police take more drastic measures.

Fade to Black has an interesting concept and an alternately creepy and pathetic protagonist in Binford, played well by Dennis Christopher.  Played well, however, doesn't mean that one wants to spend this much time with him.  It would have been better to put him into a more traditional support role than a lead as the voice and mannerisms ruin any sympathy one would have otherwise had for him.  Tim Thomerson and Gwynne Gilford serve pretty much no purpose as their characters are placed randomly in the film until toward the end.  Everyone else, from Aunt Stella to Eric's boss to Moriarty's lieutenant, spend all their time shouting. It's as if Vernon Zimmerman was traumatized by someone yelling at him at some point, so that is the only character trait most of the cast is given. 

There are many places in Fade to Black where it feels things have been left out.  Somehow they know about Eric dressing up like Dracula and the Mummy when there aren't any actual witnesses, at least not onscreen, that could describe him.  How he knows that seemingly random people are going to be places, even if they are coworkers, is suspect as well.  It seems that Vernon Zimmerman, who both wrote and directed the movie, had trouble coming up with a believable plot to fit his concept.

Because of that I found Fade to Black more frustrating than entertaining.  I understand that it is a movie about movies, and part satire of the movie-going public as well.  There are clever scenes in here and several that go off the rails in that cooky b-movie fashion of the '70s and early '80s.  Still, a few good scenes does not a movie make, and the whole feels too disjointed and filled with characters and situations that do not have a payoff.  

Fade to Black (1980)
Time: 102 minutes
Starring: Dennis Christopher, Eve Brent, Tim Thomerson, Linda Kerridge, Gwynne Gilford
Director: Vernon Zimmerman

 

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