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| From http://www.scifi-movies.com/images/ contenu/data/0001762/affiche.jpg |
Director: Nico Mastorakis
Screenplay: Nico Mastorakis and Fred
Perry
Cast: Joseph Bottoms (as Jonathon
Ratcliff); Kirstie Alley (as Claire Simpson); James Daughton (as Dave); Lana
Clarkson (as Rachel); Keir Dullea (as Dr. Steiger)
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #35
Blind Date, made by the Greek director of the Video Nasty Island of Death (1975), is certainly
one of the odder takes on the slasher film boom of the early eighties. Set in
Greece, in vast metropolis of modernised eighties skyscrapers and streets
choked with traffic, an unknown assailant driving in a taxi targets women and
performs surgery on them to kill them. This is however in the background for a
large part of the film, puncturing through in scenes without any actual gore to
speak of and merely disturbing implication, whilst we follow Jonathan Ratcliff
(Joseph Bottoms), a well off middle
class guy who immediately stands out for his white "I Love My Dentist"
t-shirt even when wearing a suit jacket and constantly wearing a Sony walkman
as he walks around.
Jonathan is a peculiar character
to side on, a voyeur with a heart of gold who doesn't exist in a film like Brian De Palma's Body Double (1984) where the director is winking back at the
viewers and pointing out their own voyeurism. Jonathan, when a woman from his
part called Rachel (Lana Clarkson)
reappears in his life, after a traumatic episode in their past, has no qualms
about creeping into her home through a hole in the roof and watching her sleep
even if he has no interest in doing anything diabolical. Adding to this
character is how sarcastic and snarky he is, making him an anti-hero if only
because, in Mastorakis' film being
played incredibly straight, there's an actual serial killer he eventually
crosses paths with and tries to stop. Contrasting him is Kirstie Alley in an
early role as a glamorous but distinctly confident co-worker named Claire, a
girlfriend who is more than willing to trade jokes back at him; she shows a
clear talent here, distinct in the cast, and makes a great contrast with her
caring but salty personality next to Bottom's
less than perfect figure.
The major aspect about Blind Date that jumps out the most is
its technological fetish. Inexplicably, after a disastrous night following Rachel,
Jonathan hits a tree branch straight in face and, much to the bafflement of medical
examiners, loses his eyesight. A doctor by the name of Dr. Steiger takes a
radical science fiction method to help him; a microchip implanted into the head
with a piece of advance recording equipment disguised as a tape recorder allows
Jonathan to have a sonar that goes directly into his brain and present the
world in white outlines against black. Ridiculous or not, including the fact Jonathan
has to use six regular button cell batteries to keep it charged, this becomes
the most memorable aspect of Blind Date,
still pertinent in the modern day in terms of the concept, including being able
to even record the images he witnesses and play them back to himself for clues,
but with an obsolete aesthetic beauty of the world being depicted in detailed
(yet vague) white silhouette.
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| From https://cinenemablog.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/cinenema-00080.jpg |
The technological fetish is
constant throughout as both this plotline and the serial killer eventually
meet. The killer themselves, probably in the most ill-advised product placement
possible, constantly has a red Sony
walkman with them which they put on themselves and play when ready to kill. Jonathan's
own interest in technology goes as far as playing an early version of Breakout on six TVs at the same time
and even attempting to go beyond virtual reality by linking the game directly
to his own brain. The result of the latter is a stimulus overload that causes
him to pass out, like a horrible psychedelic mind wipe of coloured blocks being
destroyed by a tiny ball, but also creates a way to move forward the plot, able
to gain memories lost in his subconscious back depicted like some of the early
experiments in digital from Chris Marker
essay films. The result is strange but it leads to the most rewarding aspects
of Blind Date when its plot would be
exceptionally normal otherwise. It even leads to one great scene, when Jonathan
and the killer finally meet, a hair raising moment on top of a skyscraper ledge
with Jonathan wandering forwards completely blind against a quiet neon
Coca-cola sign as a killer with a scalpel stalks him from behind.
Whether Blind Date completely works is debatable but certainly against some
of the blander slasher films of the time, it's a lot more interesting. It's warm,
tropical Greek locations give it a good personality and, whilst with little
blood, there's a ridiculous amount of nudity where it seems every actress on
screen including Alley is naked at
one point, exceptionally grubby against Jonathan's creepy voyeurism but also
strangely naive too. Alongside its strange quirks like Jonathan encountering
punks in a subway with some heightened mannerisms to them or the unexpected
internal monologues early in the film from Jonathan, including one that goes
forwards in time to a job interview as he's going to it, the result is a
curious one, justifiably a Greek film in setting and look but a spin on
American genre cinema about Americans in Greece that feels like it's in its own
world.
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| From http://media7.fast-torrent.ru/media/files/s4/ io/tl/svidanie-s-neznakomtsem.jpg |
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