Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 31

DETROIT FRF PRFSS FRIDAY, AUG. 29. 1980 3C 'He Knows You're but you won't be if you laugh When a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? While freshman philosophy students wrestle with that old question, let me ask a similar one: If a movie audience laughs, is the movie a comedy? If so, United Artists has one of the summer's laugh riots on its hands with "He Knows You're Alone," a film HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE Area Theaters Marvin Don Scardino Amy Caillin O'Heanev Killer Tom Rolling Gamble Lewis Aril Produced bv George AAanasse; directed by Armand Mastroianni; written bv Scott Parker; photography bv Gerald Feil, musical score by Alexander and Mark Peskanov, distributed bv United Artists. PARENTS' GUIDE: Rated violence, prolanitv. tmm I 1 ft I i 1 i wi I v- Af about get this for a comedy premise a psychopathic killjoy who's going around in a small New York town slicing up all the brides and bridesmaids.

BUT WAIT. I think these guys are serious. The audience isn't supposed to be guffawing and talking back to the screen, it's supposed to be scared. Do you think a human head floating in a gold fish tank is funny? Do you think it's a joke having a madman so anxious to lack Mathews movies kill somebody every five or 1 0 minutes, with a few close shaves sandwiched in between. We are never given a hint as to what the wacko has against marriage (he came from a broken home, at the very least), but we know he's been at it for a while, because the obligatory heroic cop lost his own bride to the killer three years ago.

That explains why the cop (Lewis Arlt) is mad. It doesn't explain why, when Arlt runs off to investigate a murder in a nearby bridal shop, we spend the rest of the day, the evening and the next morning with other characters before he actually gets there. The film editor must have been working with a scrambled script. Arlt, by the way, wins the worst actor of the movie award, nudging out Tom Rolfing, who plays the killer (he might have won had he been given some dialogue) and a half-dozen others. Caitlin O'Heaney, a New York stage actress making her film debut, is OK in a campy sort of way as the marked bride, and Don Scardino manages some dignity as her witty, never-say-die (pardon me) ex-boyfriend.

Lewis Arlt isn't convincing as a cop, but Caitlin O'Heaney adds a proper amount of terror in her film debut as a bride. carve you up that he hangs from your runaway station wagon like a racoon tail? Well, the people I saw this movie with did. I haven't heard so much hooting and good-hearted audience participation at a movie since my nephew dragged me to see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Rarely has a horror movie worked so hard for so little. There are so many cinematic shock tactics employed tacky eerie music announcing the killer's presence, shadowy forms in the foreground and background, slamming doors, blown light fuses, hands on shoulders, etc. that you're numb by the sixth killing.

"He Knows You're Alone" marks the directing debut of Armand Mastroianni, Marcello's American-born cousin. Better he work on becoming a Latin lover. The movie, despite some inventive moments that will be Acknowledged, is so badly produced, poorly acted and loosely directed that it wouldn't score better than a as a cinema class project. MASTROIANNI'S formula for scaring an audience is simply to have some seering-eyed madman jump out and About those inventive moments, there are two. One is the opening scene, a nifty bit of horror sleight-of-hand that shows a moviegoer being murdered while watching a murder movie.

The other is a shock-filled ride through an amusement park house of horrors, with O'Heaney expecting every turn to produce the killer. "He Knows You're Alone" is like a ride through the house of horrors, in fact. You know a lot of ugly things are going to be leaping out at you, and you can't help but be startled when they do. The big difference is that with one, you expect a good laugh. ppilMMipi IRJUWIN I LifjiE) CGlTk7 Ccjfl HHffl 1 I (111 ffllil Kivmiiii Oil TO I MELVIN SIMON PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS A TONY BILL FILM MY BODYGUARD starring CHRIS MAKEPEACE RUTH GORDON MATT DILLON JOHN HOUSEMAN CRAIG RICHARD NELSON KATHRYN GRODY iNTHonunNc.ADAM BALDWIN appka'SI? MARTIN MULL MUSDAVE GRUSIN MELVIN SIMON WRITTEN BY ALAN ORMSBY mm DON DEVLIN IftlWill.lJ 1 I 111 IUd TONY BILL PG PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED CE STARTS TODAY HI CK D1RI CrOKY I-OR SHOWTIMI ft SOME UATTRIAl MAT NOT BE SUITABLE FOX CHUXCN MEIVIN SIMON llj I 1980 TWENTIETH CENTURY-fOX 1M0 PRODUCTIONS.

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