Daily News from New York, New York • 446

eg tr MOW.ENTERTAI N'MENTESE L2) EWYORK ft Fa doft Peair Its "Stark Fear" is either itself a candidate for a psychiatrist's couch or a brilliant screen treatise on neuroses run wild. Either way, it comes highly recommended here. NIGHT OF THE YAKKING DEAD: Sinister has also unearthed a previously unre-leased stiff catchily titled The Dead Talk Back. Produced, written and directed by one Merle S. Gould (whose only other listed credit, The Body ,1 trfiA -'v A lAfy- 1 PHANTOM OF THE Zf IMSTER' PURPOSE: Deadlines and other occupational hazards kept your Phantom from dropping by the gala Chiller Theatre confab in scenic Secaucus, last Saturday, but our Halloween weekend was by no means wasted: We were able to catch up with a trio of weirdo cassettes ($19 each ppd fresh from the vintage-genre specialists at Sinister Cinema (503-773-6j0).

TALES FROM THE STARK SIDE: The 1959 regional rarity Stark Fear rates as one of the strangest flicks we've ever witnessed. Sort of a Sleeping With the Enemy in reverse, the film set's sadistic hubby Skip Homeier repeatedly abuse, then summarily abandon masochistic spouse Beverly Garland. She then spends the rest of the flick desperately searching for the psychotic, sexist lout Even after she's raped in a graveyard by Skip's cloddish best friend while her errant mate secretly (and gleefully) looks on, Kev remains bent on regaining his "affections." hen Bev spurns the more civilized advances of oilman Kenneth Tobey, a friend is moved to understate: "Sometimes I wonder about you." Beyond its skewed psychology and casting, "Stark Fear," lensed in and around Oklahoma City and financed with local dough, sports many odd touches. Sex, for example, is represented not by the expected oil rig action but by an out-of focus camera roving over an abstract painting Withal. This notorious anti-Commie screen screed sees a mysterious stranger (Dan O'Herlihy).

using naught but a snifter of brandy, mass-hypnotize a cross-section of Manhattan bar patrons into experiencing a shared vision of a Russki invasion. At first, the customers who include newscaster Gerald Mohr and California industrialist Robert Bice merely watch the collective hallucination unfold on the bar TV. But it's not long before all are personally involved in the widespread panic as stock-footage atom bombs fly and enemy troops disguised as American soldiers infiltrate our cities, shoot our bosses, violate our women and generally make mock of our democratic ideals. Our fave moment arrives when rescuers sifting through the rubble of an A-bombed NYC discover bartender Tom Kennedy beneath a pile of bricks, his lifeless hand still clutching his cocktail shaker Is that a way to go or what? VIDEO DRIVE-IN: Cable's Comedy Central intros an irreverent new genre-video program titled "Drive-In Reviews," hosted by Chicagoans Buzz Kilman and Tony Fitzpat-rick. The show's first five episodes will be airing through Nov.

13. Check local listings. WISH I'D SAID THAT Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1958's Queen of Outer Space: "So what is so different about gold? We have much here on Venus." And Myron Shulman will soon have an official Phantom T-shirt there in Brooklyn. Is a Shell, may be the same film), this 1957 horror-tinged mystery plays more like a 1930s Poverty Row clinker. The flick follows two L.A.P.D.

dicks as they attempt to solve the crossbow murder of a young model at a local boardinghouse. One boarder happens to be the inventive Mr. Krasner (Aldo Farnese), who has built a radio designed for communicating with the deceased. Dr. eagerly volunteers to help ferret out the killer by going directly to the source i.e., the late victim herself.

Gould fails grandly in every film-making capacity: Director Gould uses so many overhead shots that the camera seems stuck to the ceiling, while scripter Gould serves up lines MELEE RUSSE: A Manhattan on the rocks for bar patrons seeing Red. like "He's a friendless sort of man" and "Oh shut up, you potentate of righteousness!" According to a narrator, incidentally, "The Dead Talk Back" is "based on a true incident taken from a recent psychic re search file." Can you prove that it didn't happen? SEEING RED: We can, in hindsight, prove that the terrifying events depicted in 1952's Invasion, USA didn't or at least haven't happened. 9 Fota-nEtDoM dodoes Met Mi Tireataert By HOWARD KISSEL i), in' Dr. wgyiiiiMWiH fi. It 4Kf vl at least its potential for laughs is always high.

"The Treatment," however, takes a detour into another genre cliche, a portrait of urban America in apocalyptic decay. Here Crimp seems less assured. In addition to the central trio, the cast of characters includes a playwright who had a few plays on Broadway in the '50s and now sells his belongings on the sidewalk; a blind taxi driver; a black actor, formerly Jennifer's lover, now another movie power broker, and Anne's husband, a rough but not unsympathetic fellow. Once it expands its vision, the play quickly loses focus. Even Jennifer and Andrew lose their edge when they act in the "real" world, if only because here Crimp's writing seems strained.

The notion of a blind taxi driver, for example, is mildly funny, but it's not an image you can accept or long, even in this surreal landscape. Again, Crimp is at his best when dealing with show business the failed playwright is extremely funny, and played with great panache by David Margulies. Both Randy Danson and Daniel Von Bar-gen are powerful as the comic producers and Angie Phillips has a properly disoriented quality as Anne. James Schuette's bleak sets, dramatically lit by Scott Zielinski, capture Crimp's dark comedy well. THF.

TRI ATMf NT. By Martin Crimp With Rob Camp-hi ll, Randy Drinson. Angle Phillips. Daniel Von Bargcn. David and others Sets by James Schuette.

Costume's by Mefina Root. Directed by Marcus Stern. At the Joe Papp Public Theater. THE KERNEL OF MARTIN Crimp's "The Treatment" is a very funny idea that reality is not really interesting enough to be made into a film "The Treatment" is about a young woman. Anno, who has had some vaguely articulated experience of sexual abuse with her sullen husband.

The option to that experience has been bought by an insufferably trendy couple of producers. Jennifer, a humorless, domineering woman and her screwy, self obsessed husband. Andrew. As the timid oung woman tries to make her story compr ehensible, Jennifer circles her, bombarding her ith questions, resentful of the answers: "What you've lived is banal. Do we have to accept it?" While Jennifer grills Anne, Andrew falls in love ith her and.

henever Jennifer is out of sight tries to seduce her, Satire of the movie-making mentality Is rapidly becoming one of the biggest cliches in New York theater, but APOCALYPSE NOW: Robert Jason Jackson (left) and Rob Campbell in a scene from Martin Crimp's "The Treatment".