Dir: Nico Mastorakis | Cast: Robert Morley, Meg Foster, Wings Hauser, David McCallum | Horror, 92′
The Wind (aka Edge of Terror) is an odd film that begins as a promising Greek giallo thriller but loses its way half way through despite a brilliant cast, lush locations and Hans Zimmer’s spanking score – his first of many.
Robert Morley (Alias Appleby) and David McCullum (John) add ballast to the tenuous plot constructed by Mastorakis and his Blind Date writer Fred Perry in the second of their colourful collaborations that sees John’s successful novelist wife Sian (Meg Foster) leave their luxury LA home to finish a book on the Greek coastal town of Monemvasia. Shame then that the film’s best two male actors only get slim cameos.
Why anyone would travel to Greece from LA to find a remote retreat is a first mystery, especially when Meg has to tolerate Alias Appleby’s condescending banter on her arrival. At least Morley adds swagger to the opening scenes, offering her a stylish hideaway that comes with a caveat about the tunnels running under the property, and the ferocious nocturnal wind. Sadly the film makes scant use of its magnificent setting, confining most of the action to claustrophobic interiors and cramped alleyways.
Monemvasia is far from the sanctuary Meg had in mind; more a hub of frenzied activity of the worse kind involving the unwanted attentions of a psychotic handyman in the shape of Phil (Wings Hauser) whose opening gambit is the comforting: “Death is a whole lot different than on paper”. From the get-go we get the impression this guy is going to be a major pain in the neck, and Mastorakis never fails to disappoint in his irritating characterisation of Phil, which is neither terrifying not compelling, just plain irritating. And that’s the only psychic part of this story. Inspired by Phil’s skulduggery Meg’s writing then bizarrely pushes the plotline forward, predicting events as they gradually come true – and leaving us in doubt as to the murderer at large.
For some reason, Mastrovakis squanders all his trump cards by half-baking the script: there so much that really doesn’t follow through, lending a hollow feel to proceedings: What is Phil so angry about? What happened in his past to inform the present? What are the reasons for the demonic wind? None of this is properly explored, and there’s a latent misogyny that has us believe that Sian is a numpty who is game for verbal and physical abuse from two men, and believed to be over-doing it when she contacts the local police, when clearly she is a sane and accomplished intellectual who is being traumatised? Mavrokakis would go on to make another slasher the same year, in the shape of Zero Boys. How much more low can you go.? MT
NOW ON BLU-RAY from 13 April 2020