He Knows You're Alone (1980)

He Knows You're Alone is a 1980s slasher flick, although a low-budget one at that. The premise is good and the story does create some suspense, but it is quite boring and disengaging at some points. However, as much as I could complain about this movie, I'm going to try my best to look at this from a 1980s point of view. In retrospect of that, this film does accomplish a few great things.

The film opens in a movie theater where two young teenage girls are watching a slasher flick. One of the girls who is getting married the following week gets murdered by Ray Carlton (Tom Rolfing), the serial killer in our movie. He flees into the night, leaving it up to the girl's friend sitting next to her to figure out she has been killed. Next, we see Carlton's motive for becoming a serial killer of brides to be: when he was in love with someone who he intended to marry, his fiance dumped him and proceeded to marry another man. This incited Carlton into a violent rage and he kills his former fiance. From there on out, he has become a killer of brides. His latest mission is to stalk and kill Amy Jensen (Caitlin O'Heaney), a bride to be living on Staten Island. Her fiance Phil has gone away with the fiances of her two other friends, Nancy (Elizabeth Kemp) and Joyce (Patsy Pease). Before Phil, Amy had been in a relationship with a guy named Marvin (Don Scardino) and he wants Amy back. Thus, he acts as a secondary stalker to the killer basically and tries to win Amy back throughout most of the movie, and he actually does make quite a bit of progress. In addition, Joyce has a secret fling going on with one of her professors (James Rebhorn) and Nancy meets a jogger named Elliot (Tom Hanks) and they develop a bit of a relationship as well. So basically, all of these women are cheating, lying, scumbags but hey, for one thing it's the 80s, and for another thing, the plot wouldn't have been as interesting if they were honest and faithful gals. So I was not upset about this at all. So outside of that subplot, Amy is stalked by the killer throughout the movie and he kills those around her before he finally makes a move to try and kill her.

This movie is very much like Halloween (1978) in more ways than you might think. For most, the similarities should be blatantly obvious and many might consider this movie a rip-off because of that. I mean, the killer is so much like Michael Myers it's not even funny. Carlton has one specific person he wants to kill, like Myers does in every Halloween movie, and he stalks that one person for days on end and kills everyone around her, like Myers does to all his victims. Hell, even the music played throughout the movie sounds almost exactly like the Halloween theme song. But hey, most 1980s slasher flicks are pretty much like this anyway, so while it is basically a replica of Halloween, I was not bothered so much by it because Halloween is one of my favorite horror films of all time. Thus, my appetite for fear and suspense was still satisfied (for the most part) by He Knows You're Alone.

So how does the story hold up? It's not bad. There are good things and bad things about it. In essence, Halloween was a lot more engaging and more gripping than this film, but there are things about He Knows You're Alone that I liked better. For example, Carlton stalks Amy for a few days at least. Scenes show him pretty much everywhere that she is. I know this is true for Michael Myers as well, but I thought some of the moments where Carlton is shown standing in the shadows were a bit more effective and more prevalent. One example is when Amy is with Nancy and Elliot at an amusement park and she and her little sister go through the haunted house and Carlton's face pops up as lightning flashes. The sole element of this film that creates suspense and fear in the audience is the continuous stalking of Amy throughout the whole film. You never know where Carlton could be hiding and he could be popping out at any time. Plus, the idea of being stalked by a complete stranger like that is so damn scary to begin with. So it works. He even stalks some of the other people he kills as well, creating even more suspense. I must admit, Carlton was annoyingly slow with actually killing people, but it's really not a bad thing. The premise of a serial killer killing brides to be is quite interesting as well and I like how we are given his motive right in the beginning of the film so we don't need to wonder why he's doing what he's doing. The first murder in the movie theater is also pretty cool- she is stabbed through her seat at the same time as a kill scene is happening in the movie playing on the screen. The ending is also fun- as she and Marvin are chased throughout the morgue by the killer. What a place to have a chase scene!

Now, the film is very slow in the beginning. After the first kill, it takes a while for anything to happen really. The writers try to draw us in with pointless dialogue between the characters and it is boring and ineffective. I felt myself zoning in and out for about the first 45 minutes. After this though, the film really does start to pick up. So don't give up on it in the beginning.

The acting was okay. It's the 80s, so you can't really have your expectations set that high. I got pretty much what I expected from the cast- O'Heaney did a good job playing Amy. She was a very believable character and it was easy to see her fear that she's being stalked by someone. Rolfing was creepy as well so he did a good job playing the killer. Scardino's character was quite enjoyable and humorous as well. We don't get to see much of young Tom Hanks unfortunately as he plays the role of a very minor character.

The special effects are just not there in this film. When Rolfing muders his victims, it isn't really displayed that well and there is little if any blood at all. This annoyed the hell out of me. The Prowler which came out a year later was much better in the way of bloody kill scenes so I was baffled as to why this film had little to know visceral imagery at all. It was because The Prowler had a much larger budget than this film had though, so I really can't bank on the poor special effects because of that. Nonetheless, it still does make the movie a lot less thrilling.

By 80s standards, this film is good- it is scary and it achieves what it is trying to achieve. Although the story could be a bit more engaging, it is good enough that the audience shouldn't lose interest (at least during the second half). If you love 80s flicks and other movies such as Halloween for example, then I recommend you give this one a shot. Otherwise, I would probably not view this one. You could definitely find better slashers to watch.

BaD BiRdS: FAIR



~MJ Aufiero