VisitingHours

Visiting Hours (1982)

This is another of those cool Canadian genre flicks from the '80s. This movie is about a female reporter named Deborah who is trying to get a woman convicted of shooting her husband a new trial. See she is a woman's advocate and the husband was an abuser. This draws the attention of a nut job that has an issue with women. He shows up at her house and tries to kill her. She escapes and the rest of the movie is him trying to get her while she is in the hospital (thus the title). During one of his unsuccessful attempts a nurse sees him, which draws her into his killing spree.

I've been hearing about this movie for a while now. It is one of those Canadian productions that hasn't gotten a DVD release in the US so when I heard that it was on Netflix streaming I watched it right away. It is a shame that this isn't widely available because it is a damn good movie. I really dug the story and how it unfolds. It is a bit of a slow burn, but I loved how they introduced and develop the characters. The story could have gotten boring with much of the action the failed attempts of the killer to get to Deborah. But they manage to keep things interesting with supporting characters and a good cast.

The movie also does something that you don't see that much in these kinds of movies (Visiting Hours is basically a slasher movie) and that is give the killer a backstory. In a strange way I felt sorry for him because you can see why he is so screwed up. This is even more the case with a great performance from Michael Ironside as Colt (the murderer). The rest of the cast is solid, though I was surprised that William Shatner was billed so high. He is wasted in a small supporting role.

Now I've already mentioned that this is basically a slasher movie. Though it is possible that some mint disagree with me. The movie isn't bloody though it does have a respectable body count. Visiting Hours is more like the original Halloween and tries to build some suspense up. There are a couple decent jump scares that work nicely and the movie teases the audience by not being overly predictable. So if you define slasher movies by the gore and nudity then this might not be the movie for you.

Then again I have to say I really liked it myself. It is a well-written and engaging movie that kept my attention from start to finish. I've bugged a lot of people with some of the reviews on the site because of comments about good reasons some of these horror movies from the '80s not being out on DVD (basically they are garbage). Visiting Hours is one of them that should have a nice DVD for us to have in our collections.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer