Review: I Saw What You Did

With her parents (Leif Erickson being the Ward Cleaver-ish dad) out for the night, adorable teen Andi Garrett invites best friend Sarah Lane over for some hijinks. Along with Garrett’s younger sister they start prank calling people at random. One prank involves creepily stating ‘I saw what you did and I know who you are’, and it’s this particular prank that gets them in hot water. You see, the man they’ve just tried to spook (John Ireland) has just murdered his wife in the shower! Still, it’s not like the creepy murderer is gonna come into physical contact with the girls, right?...Right? Joan Crawford plays Ireland’s nosey neighbour who has romantic longings for him.

 

Enjoyable B-movie fun from director/producer William Castle (“The House on Haunted Hill”, “The Tingler”, “Mr. Sardonicus”), this 1965 is a slow-starter but worth the wait. The adorable vintage TV sitcom leads and the jaunty sitcom-ish music score by Van Alexander (“13 Frightened Girls”, “Strait-Jacket”) are pretty damn amusing and the premise is priceless. The whole thing plays like a mixture of “Leave It to Beaver”, “Psycho”, and “Sorry, Wrong Number” and I was fully on board. The prank call session is hilariously irresponsible but totally relatable even though it arrives about 10 minutes too slow by my (impatient) count. Veteran character actor John Ireland is perfectly cast as the killer, and Joan Crawford’s modest melodramatic talents are well-utilised in a rather sad and pathetic role. You don’t know who to feel more afraid for, her or the girls. All three are messing with the wrong guy and are completely in over their heads with him. Meanwhile, for what likely didn’t cost all that much outside of hiring Ireland and Crawford, this looks terrific in B&W thanks to the expert work by Joseph Biroc (“Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte”, “Emperor of the North Pole”). Things start to get less light-hearted in the final 10-15 minutes which are genuinely tense without seeming to come from a different film.

 

A really rock-solid, enjoyable William Castle piece of schlock well worth checking out. The screenplay is by William McGivern (“The Big Heat”, “Odds Against Tomorrow”) from an Ursula Curtiss novel called Out of the Dark.   

 

Rating: B-

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more