Okay! As promised, this is the first of four February VHS Fridays. And the first is one I picked up at last October's Frightmare in the Falls.
Two detectives (Robert Loggia & Leo Rossi) are on the trail of a serial killer (Judd Nelson) who is seemingly picking victims at random from the phone book.
I have such vivid memories of watching Relentless in the theatre with my father. Like when Nelson's character says to his father's photo, “it's not my fault the police are stupid!”, I distinctly remember a dude behind me saying, “he wants to get caught?!” Rossi's speech about catching the Son of Sam by tirelessly going through parking tickets has also been lodged in my brain all this time. It's actually quite remarkable how much of this movie I remembered, considering it's been some thirty-odd years since I last saw it. Memory is a funny thing. You know what else just this moment struck me as funny? The concept of a phone book. I mean, I get listing phone numbers, but the idea that anyone could look up where you live? That's a little scary, don't you think?
I can tell you that I had certainly forgotten (if I ever realized it) that Bill Lustig directed this. That's probably why all the cops stuff is so punchy. Rossi and Loggia play off each other well and the all the references between LA & NY departments kind of make sense now. Nelson's turn as a psycho is pretty sedate, and probably did his career no favours at the time, but good for him for giving it a go.
Additionally, there are tons of great supporting roles in this, like Eddie Bunker, Buck Flower, Meg Foster and Beau Starr (who I would have seen the year before in Halloween 4). Imdb told me that Joe Spinnell was supposed to play the police chief, but was too sick to fly to LA. That's a bummer, but the connections don't stop there, as Lustig's relationship with a young Tarantino (and his gig directing True Romance) fell apart here and Sam Raimi got a thanks in the credits for giving up the title, as he wanted to use Relentless for his sophomore effort Crimewave. I guess The Sunset Killer sounded too much like an early draft title.
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| Leo Rossi (left) & Robert Loggia in Relentless. |
Jay Shataway's score is delightfully reminiscent of the time, with screaming guitars abound. And you can always count on Lustig for some good stunts. There's some solid car stuff, a rooftop edge-run that I'm still not sure how they did, and a high jump through glass that I remember being in every trailer and TV spot.
Relentless was fun to revisit, and I think I've only seen one of the three sequels which I will have to rectify. But first though, it would appear I have built up a number of serial killer VHS, so the goal is to knock those off in the coming weeks. So lock your doors and I'll see you in the dark.
