Who Killed Cock Robin?

Yes, October VHS Fridays continue here at THS. Since my tape of the 1982 Morgan Fairchild thriller The Seduction snapped on its reels, I had to make a last-minute pivot to the Aussie offering Cassandra from 1987.

Young Cassandra's (Tessa Humprhries) repressed memories have been bubbling to the surface. Her parents tell her it's nothing, but their reluctance to share the skeletons in their family closet may have dire consequences.

Cassandra opened up promisingly enough with a wicked title card, some wild editing that would make even Sam Raimi blush, a sweet piano-driven score and an evil child channeling Emperor Palpatine.

That GIF really doesn't do it justice without sound. I also want to point out that it gives me great joy that even after a half-century on this Earth, most of that watching horror films, I can still encounter clips and sounds that were sampled by the industrial bands I listened to in my youth, this one in particular being TKK. So, five minutes in, I was having a gas.

Cassandra ends up being a servicable flick, but it has a bit of an identity crisis, not uncommon of late eighties horror. Its body count is too low to be a slasher, even though it may have been marketed as such, and its supernatural elements - Cass's visions of past and future - are too sparce for your average paranormal affair so it just spends much of its running time hanging between the two.

Tessa Humphries as Cassandra.

Another puzzling element is how little Cassandra is in this movie. You would assume being the title character, she would be the, you know, MAIN character, but to be honest she almost disappears in the middle act, replaced by her mother-not-mother Helen, who is admittedly bad-ass. She fends off multiple attacks from the killer and surprised me with her resilience. The rest was just looking past the reddest of all red herrings, awaiting the true killer to be revealed that I certainly didn't need Cassie's second sight to figure out.

I've had this tape for quite some time (and one of the few I own with a blue case) so it was good that I finally got down under to watch this piece of Ozploitation. I think I have my Fridays line up locked in for the next few weeks (provided no tape malfunctions) so check back soon.