Weekly Review -- Fear strikes back

Visiting Hours (1982) -- I first discovered this chiller a few years ago, but just managed to find a copy recently. Since I believe -- and I know I am not alone -- that hospitals are some of the creepiest places around, even without being utilized as locations in horror films, I thought that this movie would be a cool find. Journalist Deborah Ballin (Lee Grant) dedicates a lot of air time to battered women's rights and victims' rights in general. She inadvertently angers a misogynist psychopath, Colt Hawker (eternal baddie Michael Ironside), who attacks her in her own home one night, sending her to intensive care. Since he failed to kill her, Hawker sneaks into the hospital to finish the job... The movie provides plenty of scares and 'jump' moments, as well as a truly frightening and realistic villain. I am glad that the murderer is not your standard knife-wielding maniac; there are parts of the movie that reveal the origins of his blind and unjustified hatred, creating a three-dimensional psycho from what could easily have been a cardboard cutout. However, Visiting Hours also contains plot holes that are larger than its main location. First of all, why did Deborah not describe her attacker to the police? She was well enough to hold a press conference later, so the police knew that they were able to question her, but no, Hawker keeps roaming the streets long after the attack. Also, how could everyone just slip into the hospital undetected? I could not believe just how easily Hawker could walk in and out. At one point, Ballin's boss, Gary Baylor (William Shatner), says that "everyone is screened"; he obviously missed the first two thirds of this movie. Another aspect is simply implausible -- is there only one hospital in the city which was earlier identified as none other than Washington, D.C.? It seemed that every single imperiled character would end up in this particular one somehow. The gaps in logic go on and on, making the screenplay seem hurried and botched. Still, the movie is worth a watch, partly due to the tense cat-and-mouse game that ensues between Grant and Ironside's characters, and partly due to Grant's convincing portrayal of a woman who stands up for her beliefs and integrity. The psychology behind the lead characters' actions makes the suspense genuine and the movie effective; it is too bad that the actual script could not find enough common sense to back up its own ideas.

5/10