Phobia (1980)

User Rating:

2.9/10   

Director:

John Huston

Writers:

Peter Bellwood (writer)
Lew Lehman (writer)

Release Date:

9 September 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

What happens when your Psychiatrist goes out of his mind?

Plot:

A psychiatrist (Paul Michael Glaser) treats his patients - sufferers from agoraphobia, claustrophobia...

Plot Keywords:

Fear | Psychiatrist | Therapy | Murder | Drowning

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Paul Michael Glaser	...	Dr. Peter Ross
Susan Hogan	...	Jenny St Clair
John Colicos	...	Barnes
David Bolt	...	Henry Owen
Patricia Collins	...	Dr. Alice Toland
David Eisner	...	Johnny Venuti
Lisa Langlois	...	Laura Adams
Robert O'Ree	...	Bubba King
Alexandra Stewart	...	Barbara Grey
Neil Vipond	...	Dr. Clegg
Marian Waldman	...	Mrs. Casey
Kenneth Welsh	...	Sgt Wheeler
Gwen Thomas	...	Dr. Clemens
Paddy Campanaro	...	Newswoman #1
Gerry Salsberg	...	Newsman #1

Runtime:

94 min | West Germany:86 min

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 (re-rating) | Argentina:X (original rating) | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Company:

Borough Park Productions

Trivia:

Melvyn Hill (no relation to Gladys) was also a major contributor to the development of the script. Professor Hill, a psychologist whose knowledge about the criminally insane as well as his credible creative writing skills also advised Mr. Huston with the preparation of the script. Uncredited.

Soundtrack:

My Rival

Eminently forgettable

The late, great John Huston apparently went on a bender and woke up in Canada where they plopped him in the director's chair to helm a tax-shelter "psychological" horror flick remarkably similar to "Schizoid", a slightly better Klaus Kinski vehicle released the same year. An unorthodox psychiatrist finds that his patients are being murdered, ironically in ways that play to their greatest phobias. So who could be the killer? Well, I won't spoil it, but all you have to do is looking at the frickin' tag line.

Besides being generic and dull, the main problem here is the male lead. Canadians do tend to have an inferiority complex sometimes, but I find it hard to believe that they couldn't have found a greater thespian talent in that entire country than "Hutch" (or was it "Starsky"--I get confused?). Paul Michael Glaser gives a central performance that is every bit as compelling as paint drying. As for Huston, this fortunately wasn't his swan-song--he ended his life with an impressive troika of films, "Under the Volcano", "Prizzi's Honor", and "The Dead". This was merely an unfortunate misstep for him.

The only good thing I can say about this (and I'm really clutching for straws here), is that, also like "Schizoid", it does have a surprising and uncharacteristic nude scene by a young lovely of the Canadian tax shelter era. With "Schizoid" it was Donna Wilkes; here it is Lisa Langlois, who was in Claude Chabrol's "Blood Relatives" and any number of Canadian films better than this (maybe THAT was the whole reason I watched this years back--who knows?). Other than that small favor though its eminently forgettable