In short: Innocent Prey (1984)

Cathy Wills (P.J. Soles) witnesses her husband Joe (Kit Taylor)murdering a prostitute. Because being married to a serial killer apparently isn’t a turn on for her, she helps folksy Dallas sheriff Baker (Martin Balsam) arrest him. Alas, Joe very quickly breaks out of one of those very low security “high security” establishments, and makes his way to kill Cathy. He doesn’t quite manage that, but ups his kill count by at least three cops and has some fun decoratively putting up a female cop head under great time pressure. And while Cathy escapes, Joe does so, too.

Sensibly, our heroine decides leaving Dallas for at least as long as Joe stays uncaught is a good idea. Fortunately, her friend Gwen (Susan Stenmark) has invited our heroine to stay with her in Australia, which seems a good bit away from Texas. Alas, once Cathy has arrived and starts to relax a little, she encounters another man of dubious sanity. Gwen’s neighbour and landlord Phillip (John Warnock) loves spying with hidden cameras, murder by electricity, and has rather interesting ideas about female purity. He’s obsessed with Cathy on first encounter. Because that’s not trouble enough, Joe has found out where she is hiding, and is beginning to make his way to Australia. Oh, and did I mention there seems to be something a little off about Rick (Grigor Taylor), the man Cathy feels drawn to?

I do tend to complain about overly constructed horror movies and thrillers, but I find it pretty difficult to resist the charms of this Australian example of the form directed by Colin Eggleston. It’s a very efficient film, packing two continents and two and a half psychos into a running time of less than ninety minutes, while still managing to sort of connect all the more or less nonsensical dots.

There’s a lot to love about the film: the contrast between Joe’s traditional slasher methods and Phillip’s ridiculous high tech as of 1984 oriented ways, how hilariously obvious the two (as well as the next one on the list) are as movie crazy people yet still manage to keep Cathy guessing for a bit, the exoticizing of Texas in Joe’s half of the film – it’s all very good fun.

When he puts his mind to it, Eggleston can actually compose a perfectly decent thriller sequence, as proven by Joe’s attack on his former home, which makes all the improbable ideas, the scenery chewing – particularly Warnock is a bizarre joy – and the dubious taste all the more delightful.