Torment (1986) New World/Suspense-Thriller RT: 79 minutes Rated R (violence, language, some suggestive content) Director: Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins Screenplay: Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins Music: Christopher Young Cinematography: Stephen Carpenter Release date: May 16, 1986 (Philadelphia, PA) Cast: Taylor Gilbert, William Witt, Eve Brenner, Warren Lincoln, Najean Cherry, Stan Weston, Doug Leach, Lisa Ramirez, Dan Kosloff, Paul McCarthy, Mark Elliot Grauer. Box Office: N/A
Rating: ** ½
Show of hands, who else besides me remembers Torment, a low-budget, Hitchcock-lite psychological thriller in the vein of Wait Until Dark? This is a rhetorical question, of course. I’ve never encountered a single soul who recalls this flick, a one-week wonder from New World Pictures. It stars a bunch of actors you’ve probably never heard of, most of whom have never been heard from since. It’s written and directed by two guys named Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins. It’s the only directorial effort for both. Hopkins went on to greater things, namely co-writing the screenplay for the 1996 orangutan comedy Dunston Checks In. Aslanian shifted his focus to producing music videos, many of them for Madonna songs. Don’t get too excited, he didn’t work on any of the ones we grew up watching on MTV in the 80s and early 90s.
Perhaps the most famous people that worked on Torment are cinematographer Stephen Carpenter and production consultant Jeffrey Obrow. Horror aficionados know them as the pair that wrote and directed The Dorm That Dripped Blood, The Power and The Kindred. I can’t say what creative input (if any) they had here, but seeing their names in the credits instills a small measure of hope. The other familiar name you’ll see in the credits is Christopher Young. He composed the score for this and many, many other movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Hellraiser 1 & 2, The Fly II, Tales from the Hood and the first two Carpenter-Obrow titles.
I saw Torment at a Saturday matinee at the old City Line Theater. By this point, nobody I knew even raised an eyebrow slightly when I opted to see it over that weekend’s bigger release, some dopey movie called Top Gun. It was the New World logo that sealed the deal for me. In all honesty, it didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I thought it was okay. I saw it again on cable the following year and once more in early ’96. My opinion didn’t change with either rewatch. In the 26 years since I last saw Torment, roughly 95% of it faded from memory. The only thing I could remember was the killer bore an eerie resemblance to Stephen King. Deciding a rewatch was in order, I retrieved my old VHS copy from the basement and fired up the old VCR. Luckily, it still has some life left in it. I hope it holds on a little longer, at least until I get a chance to rewatch The Princess Academy.
A serial killer is loose in San Francisco. He (Witt) identifies himself as “Bob” when he calls a local radio station to rant about the loose morals of modern women. He’s a paunchy, middle-aged creep who doesn’t take rejection well. After an attractive girl (Ramirez) disses him in a bar, he follows her and her more age-appropriate lover (Kosloff) back to her place where he shoots them both dead. Michael Courtland (Lincoln, The Power), the detective assigned to the case, is at a loss. He doesn’t even know where to begin looking for the killer. It puts a strain on his relationship with his fiancee Jennifer (Gilbert, Spider-Man 1 & 2), especially when he informs her he won’t be able to provide back-up when she goes to meet his mother for the first time. Hold on, they’re getting married in two weeks and she’s just now meeting Mom? Either the family or the script is dysfunctional, but which one?
It turns out Mom is a real humdinger! Mrs. Courtland (Brenner) is a crazy old lady in a wheelchair. She lives in a big mansion by herself and is known to local police for her tendency to cry wolf every time she hears the slightest bump in the night. She’s convinced somebody’s out to get her. This time, she might be right. The killer followed Jennifer from the city to the house where she’s spending the weekend with her future mother-in-law. No sooner does she get there than the killer starts terrorizing the old lady. Naturally, Jennifer dismisses her claims as paranoid fantasy. Won’t she be surprised when she learns there really is a killer and he has his sights set on her?
Nothing about Torment really stands out EXCEPT for this one plot twist I didn’t see coming on my first viewing. It’s a shocker alright. I won’t reveal it, of course. I’ll just say it’s the only flash of originality in the entire picture. The rest is fairly standard thriller stuff. Take the killer’s motive. “Bob” is yet another psycho who kills women for being too sexually liberated. We don’t get much more of an explanation than that. He says something about losing his family and job, but the dots go unconnected. For a thriller than depends on a character’s psychology, it’s disappointingly shallow when it comes to exploring (or rather, NOT exploring) it with any real depth.
Another show of hands, who enjoys spotting errors in movies? This too is rhetorical. Who doesn’t enjoy spotting mistakes in movies? Torment has a doozy of one, but I must warn you that it’s something of a spoiler. Just to be clear, let me sound the alarm. SPOILER ALERT! Ready? Here we go. At the end, I noticed that the supposedly dead killer is still breathing and quite visibly at that. True, it could be the set-up for a sequel, but I doubt it. I’m going to go ahead and chalk it up to low-budget filmmaking. It’s the more likely explanation. In their haste to make their movie quickly and cheaply, the directors either let this small detail get by them on purpose or they couldn’t afford to reshoot the scene. Either way, it’s one of the inherent joys of watching cheap B-movies.
At a scant 79 minutes, you have to wonder if there was more to Torment at some point. In its present form, it doesn’t have a clear idea of what it wants to be. It has trouble finding direction. It starts off with the killer as the main character. We watch as he stalks and kills his first victims. Then it briefly shifts to the detective as he investigates the discovery of the corpse of another victim. This covers roughly the first 15-20 minutes. After that, it becomes Jennifer’s story as she deals with a seemingly delusional in-law-to-be and a psycho chasing them through a dark house. It makes for bumpy viewing.
Acting is definitely not one of this picture’s strong suits. It’s pretty bad in general. I don’t believe I heard a single convincing line reading. Not a one. They all sound rehearsed. The plot, aside from that one twist, is fairly predictable. I was very disappointed in the lack of gore. I know it’s technically a thriller, but they could have offer up a little splatter for the horror fans. Aside from one use of the f-word, I don’t see a reason for the R rating.
Torment has a few effective moments, but they’re undermined by the movie’s flaws and overall lack of originality. HOWEVER, it earns points in my book for nostalgic reasons. Movies like this define the 80s for me. Sure, I appreciate the biggies like E.T., Ghostbusters and Back to the Future, but there’s a lot to be said for the low-budget schlocky flicks that played for one-week-and-gone runs, especially ones that bore the New World logo. A mediocre effort at best, Torment looks so much better when compared to 97% of today’s watered-down PG-13 frightless fests.
