{"id":2597,"date":"2024-08-20T05:05:35","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T05:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2597"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:21:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:21:51","slug":"torment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/20\/torment\/","title":{"rendered":"Torment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Torment <\/strong>(1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 79 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, some suggestive content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Christopher Young\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Stephen Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 16, 1986 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Taylor Gilbert, William Witt, Eve Brenner, Warren Lincoln, Najean Cherry, Stan Weston, Doug Leach, Lisa Ramirez, Dan Kosloff, Paul McCarthy, Mark Elliot Grauer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Show of hands, who else besides me remembers Torment<\/strong>, a low-budget, Hitchcock-lite psychological thriller in the vein of Wait Until Dark? This is a rhetorical question, of course. I\u2019ve never encountered a single soul who recalls this flick, a one-week wonder from New World Pictures. It stars a bunch of actors you\u2019ve probably never heard of, most of whom have never been heard from since. It\u2019s written and directed by two guys named Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins. It\u2019s 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\u2019t get too excited, he didn\u2019t work on any of the ones we grew up watching on MTV in the 80s and early 90s.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Perhaps the most famous people that worked on Torment<\/strong> 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\u2019t 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\u2019ll 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\u2019s Revenge, Hellraiser 1 & 2, The Fly II, Tales from the Hood and the first two Carpenter-Obrow titles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I saw Torment<\/strong> 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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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 \u201996. My opinion didn\u2019t change with either rewatch. In the 26 years since I last saw Torment<\/strong>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A serial killer is loose in San Francisco. He (Witt) identifies himself as \u201cBob\u201d when he calls a local radio station to rant about the loose morals of modern women. He\u2019s a paunchy, middle-aged creep who doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019t be able to provide back-up when she goes to meet his mother for the first time. Hold on, they\u2019re getting married in two weeks and she\u2019s just now meeting Mom? Either the family or the script is dysfunctional, but which one?<\/p>\n

\u00a0It 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\u2019s convinced somebody\u2019s out to get her. This time, she might be right. The killer followed Jennifer from the city to the house where she\u2019s 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\u2019t she be surprised when she learns there really is a killer and he has his sights set on her?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nothing about Torment<\/strong> really stands out EXCEPT for this one plot twist I didn\u2019t see coming on my first viewing. It\u2019s a shocker alright. I won\u2019t reveal it, of course. I\u2019ll just say it\u2019s the only flash of originality in the entire picture. The rest is fairly standard thriller stuff. Take the killer\u2019s motive. \u201cBob\u201d is yet another psycho who kills women for being too sexually liberated. We don\u2019t 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\u2019s psychology, it\u2019s disappointingly shallow when it comes to exploring (or rather, NOT exploring) it with any real depth.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Another show of hands, who enjoys spotting errors in movies? This too is rhetorical. Who doesn\u2019t enjoy spotting mistakes in movies? Torment <\/strong>has a doozy of one, but I must warn you that it\u2019s something of a spoiler. Just to be clear, let me sound the alarm. SPOILER ALERT!<\/strong> 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\u2019m going to go ahead and chalk it up to low-budget filmmaking. It\u2019s 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\u2019t afford to reshoot the scene. Either way, it\u2019s one of the inherent joys of watching cheap B-movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At a scant 79 minutes, you have to wonder if there was more to Torment<\/strong> at some point. In its present form, it doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Acting is definitely not one of this picture\u2019s strong suits. It\u2019s pretty bad in general. I don\u2019t 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\u2019s 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\u2019t see a reason for the R rating.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Torment<\/strong> has a few effective moments, but they\u2019re undermined by the movie\u2019s 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\u2019s 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<\/strong> looks so much better when compared to 97% of today\u2019s watered-down PG-13 frightless fests.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Torment (1986)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Suspense-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 79 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence, language, some suggestive content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Samson Aslanian and John Hopkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Christopher Young\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Stephen Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 16, 1986 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Taylor Gilbert, William Witt, Eve Brenner, Warren Lincoln, Najean Cherry, Stan Weston, Doug Leach, Lisa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Torment-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2597"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3413,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions\/3413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}