Blow Out

Year of Release:  1981
Director:  Brian De Palma
Screenplay:  Brian De Palma
Starring:  John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz
Running Time:  108 minutes
Genre:  Thriller

Philadelphia sound technician Jack Terry (Travolta) is hard at work on the post production of a low-budget slasher film.  Visiting a park late at night to record sound effects, Jack witnesses, and records, a car crashing off the road and into a creek.  While he is able to save the passenger, Sally (Allen), the male driver is killed.  It turns out that the driver was a hugely popular presidential candidate.  As he analyses his recording, Jack becomes convinced that it was no accident, but murder.  When Jack tries to convince the authorities of his suspicions, he soon realises that he and Sally are now targets of a very dangerous conspiracy.

This film reunites director Brian De Palma with John Travolta and Nancy Allen who all previously worked together on Carrie (1976).  It's certainly fair to say that, along with Carrie, this is one of De Palma's finest films.  As a director Brian De Palma has a very good eye, but tends to let style get in the way of substance.  He reaches into his bag of tricks here with split-screen, long elaborate tracking shots and slow motion. The story is interesting and involving, with a strain of dark humour, and a startlingly downbeat conclusion.  It features several of De Palma's recurring themes, notably guilt, voyeurism, sexually motivated violence and film references.  However, this has a political dimension that was timely in the early 1980s and is still pertinent today.  The action scenes are skillfully choreographed and the whole thing is genuinely exciting.  John Travolta has seldom been better here, and Nancy Allen, while underused, is affecting.  John Lithgow and Dennis Franz make the most of supporting roles as sleazy creeps, with Lithgow being particularly effective and chilling.
   

John Travolta in Blow Out

Psycho II

Year of Release:  1983
Director:  Richard Franklin
Screenplay:  Tom Holland
Starring:  Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Meg Tilly, Robert Loggia, Dennis Franz
Running Time:  113 minutes
Genre:  Crime, mystery, horror

After 22 years in an institution Norman Bates (Perkins) is deemed sane and safe to return to the community.  One person who vocally disagrees is Lila Loomis (Miles), whose sister was one of those murdered by Norman.  Despite Lila's protests, Norman is released and returns to his old house overlooking the old Bates Motel.  He starts work as a chef's assistant at a small local diner, where he soon befriends young waitress Mary (Tilly).  However Norman soon starts receiving strange phone calls and threatening notes, apparently from his dead Mother, and then the murders start up again.  Is Norman back to his old ways?  Or is there someone else trying to tip him into insanity?

This film is obviously nowhere near as good as the Alfred Hitchcock original, but it is a good film in it's own right.  It is suspenseful and plays more as a psychological drama than a full on horror film.  Perkins again provides a great, tormented performance as Norman.  The film is stylishly shot, with a predilection for odd camera angles, however it looks very stagey (even some of the exterior scenes look as if they were filmed on a sound stage).  The script by Tom Holland (and no, not the current Spider-Man) has a few too many last minute rescues and a few too many twists, but it keeps the suspense and is always creepy.  It also benefits from a strong vein of dark comedy. 

What would Mother say?  Meg Tillis and Anthony Perkins in Psycho II