BLIND FEAR
US, 1989, 98 minutes, Colour.
Shelley Hack, Kim Coates, Jack Langedijk, Jan Rubes.
Directed by Tom Berry.
Blind Fear is basically a routine thriller, focusing on the plight of a blind woman. This theme has been treated in such films as Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn, See No Evil with Mia Farrow, Blind Witness with Victoria Principal.
This time the victim is Shelley Hack. She works as a receptionist in a hotel which is closing down and being demolished. There is an elaborate armour-guard robbery and the thieves hide out in the hotel. The film is set overnight with Shelley Hack trying to evade the thieves, especially the sociopathic Ed. Jan Rubes, a veteran of many Canadian films, portrays the sympathetic handyman who is murdered. The material is generally predictable and relies on the suspense as to how Shelley Hack will evade the criminals. However, there is a considerable twist at the end which makes us rethink our sympathies.
1.Entertaining thriller? Familiar story of the blind woman evading detection and being terrorised?
2.Canadian settings, the roads, the hotel, police precincts, cafes? Authentic? Musical score?
3.The title and the indication of plot and themes?
4.The closing down of the hotel, the upper floor and its rotting, the taking of the telephones - leaving the pay phone? The way this information was used in the plot later? The night, darkness? Lasky staying, Erica staying? The thieves and their use of the hotel? The build-up for suspense?
5.Erica, seeing her at work, her alertness while blind, the taking of the telephones? Her decision to stay at the hotel? Wanting Lasky to go? Her hiding, Lasky's murder, her going upstairs? Her ruses to evade detection, silence, the animal trap? The confrontation with Ed and his falling through the roof? The final confrontations - her almost being killed? The police and the rescue? The irony of Cousin Harry being the mastermind? Her being in on the robbery? Her reaction to Lasky's death? Her trying to buy off the policeman? Her future?
6.The robbery, Ed's brutality in killing the guards? Harry and his overall control? His phone calls? The thieves going to the hotel, settling in, Ed and his sociopathic attitude, taunting Lasky and then killing him? Clashes with the others? The pursuit of Erica, his brutality, injury, trying to kill her, being shot? Beau and his fears, trapped in the animal trap, killed by Ed? The woman - and the explosion in the house? Erica and her shrewdness in setting the place alight? The arrival of Harry - and his intentions of keeping the money? Erica and her holding on to the money?
7.The police, the young policeman attracted to Erica, trying to get her a job? Puzzling over the happenings of the night, talking to the pizza man? Going to the house, the rescue? Arresting Erica - and her trying to tempt him with the money?
8.Lasky, sympathetic, helping Erica, the pathos of his murder?
9.The credibility of the plot? The robbery, the brutality, the hiding out, Harry and Erica and the collaboration, the police?
