He Knows You're Alone (1980)

A young bride-to-be is being stalked upon by a serial killer in Staten Island. She gets help from a former lover, but will they manage to escape?

Director:

Armand Mastroianni

Writer:

Scott Parker

Stars:

Don Scardino, Caitlin O'Heaney, Elizabeth Kemp

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Don Scardino	...	Marvin
Caitlin O'Heaney	...	Amy Jensen
Elizabeth Kemp	...	Nancy
Tom Rolfing	...	Ray Carlton (the killer)
Lewis Arlt	...	Det. Len Gamble
Patsy Pease	...	Joyce
James Rebhorn	...	Prof. Carl Mason
Tom Hanks	...	Elliot
Dana Barron	...	Diana
Joseph Leon	...	Ralph the Tailor
Paul Gleason	...	Det. Frank Daley
James Carroll	...	Phil
Brian Byers	...	Bernie
Curt Hostetter	...	Tommy
Robin Lamont	...	Ruthie

Storyline

A reluctant bride to be is stalked by a serial killer who only kills brides and the people around them. While her friends get whacked one by one, a hard boiled renegade cop whose bride had been killed years before tries to hunt him down before it is too late. Meanwhile, the bride has to figure out if it is all in her imagination or not, aided by her ex-boyfriend...

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Plot Keywords:

bride | serial killer | new york city | cult film | woman wearing only a man's shirt | 

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Taglines:

Every girl is frightened the night before her wedding, but this time... there's good reason!

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 August 1980 (USA)

Also Known As:

Panische Angst

Filming Locations:

Something Sweet, 314 New Dorp Lane, Staten Island, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$250,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The shooting of the film was done in a mere 15 days, and the entire production process from writing to final cut of the film was done in four months.

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Goofs

In the scene where Nancy plays the record album, there are two close-ups of the album on the turntable. From the first close-up to the second close-up, the speed of the spinning record has increased, although the speed/pitch of the music remains constant.

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Quotes

Detective Len Gamble: What do you have?
Detective Thompson: A tailor, murdered with a pair of scissors.
Detective Len Gamble: Does anyone else work here?
Detective Thompson: The dead guy's wife.
Detective Len Gamble: Find her, she may be able to help.
Detective Thompson: And what are you going to be doing?
Detective Len Gamble: Sleeping, I've had a long drive!
Detective Thompson: You're a big help!

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Connections

Referenced in The Big Box: Christmas Evil (2011)

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Soundtracks

Mysterious Lover
Words by Jeanne Napoli, deBorge Roggeman
Music by Alexander Peskanov and Mark Peskanov
Sung by Jeanne Napoli
© 1980 by Songs of Bandler-Koppelman, Inc., Windward Music and Viv Enterprises, Ltd., Zorro Music Division

User Reviews

Flawed slasher movie, of curiosity interest for the presence of debuting Tom Hanks.

While Psycho was one of the great films of all-time, we've all had to pay a high price ever since. The slasher genre was ignited by the phenomenal success of John Carpenter's Psycho homage "Halloween", and an interminable series of slasher movies followed in the late '70s and early '80s. Halloween II, Happy Birthday To Me, Friday the 13th, The Final Terror, Visiting Hours, Prom Night and He Knows You're Alone are just a handful of titles that spring to mind. He Knows You're Alone is a fairly forgettable example from 1980, but it has sporadic moments of suspense and is of curiosity interest as the movie debut of Tom Hanks.

A knife-wielding killer (Tom Rolfing) preys upon young brides-to-be. Years earlier, he murdered his ex-girlfriend on her wedding day and has been pursued ever since by the cop, Len Gamble (Lewis Arlt), to whom she was due to be wed. The disturbed psycho starts a new campaign of bride-brutalising, first stabbing an engaged woman in a movie theater, and then stalking resourceful young Amy Jensen (Caitlin O'Heaney, in a very winning performance), whose future husband is away on a bachelor weekend. One by one, Amy's friends fall foul of the killer, until she seeks the aid of her ex-boyfriend, oddball morgue attendant Marvin (Don Scardino), in escaping from her stalker.

Director Armand Matroianni (son of actor Marcello) borrows heavily from earlier genre entries. His build-up in the murder sequences is almost identical to Carpenter's use of lighting, music and point-of-view camera shots in Halloween. The gore is kept to a minimum (apart from a quite bloody severed-head-in-a-fishtank scene) and a greater emphasis is placed on suspense. Alas, many of the "suspenseful" moments are rather fluffed because the director makes it too obvious when the jump-out-of-your-seat moments are about to occur. Hanks has a very small role as a psychology student who gives the film's self-referential speech about why people love to be scared by horror movies. He's competent in the role, but one wouldn't have predicted from this evidence that he would go on to become a super-star. A major flaw with the film is that Tom Rolfing's killer character is supposed to be a bride killer, but he breaks his own rules on numerous occasions by hacking down victims who are not brides-to-be. In fact, some of his murders are so senseless and unmotivated that he comes across more as a rampaging killing machine than anything else. It just seems to me that films of this ilk should at least make a small amount of sense, at least on their own terms.He Knows You're Alone is a competent and forgettable slasher film... if you're a fan of the genre you'll like it, if you're not you won't.