10 December 2024
Visions of Evil (1975)
90 min.
Directed by Harry Thomason.
With Lori Saunders, Dean Jagger, Bob Ginnaven, Seymour Treitman, Lou Hoffman, Linda Wyse, Etta Jagger, John Brown.
A sleepy slasher mystery that ain't half bad.

Just released from a mental asylum, attractive but unstable heiress Gloria Wellman (Saunders) attempts to put her life back in order when she meets charming beau Frederick (Jagger).

The two get married and take up blissful residence...in the same house where a psychotic murderer with an axe recently hacked a woman to bloody death!

Soon, Gloria is seeing a menacing axe-wielding figure on the front lawn...and hearing child lullabies in her head.

Could she be losing it again? Or is there a real lunatic in her future?

Pleasing horror (basically grand guignol in nature & structure) is kept going by Saunders (from TV's Petticoat Junction series) as the likable yet frazzled lead.

The climax builds up a decent head of steam with the killer in a Tor Johnson mask cornering poor Gloria...and a great double cross type of ending.

Best scene: the psycho's first axe murder, a gritty and raw moment well edited and clumsily brutal.

Also known as So Sad About Gloria.

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