The Screen Addict | 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 (𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟬)

Back when we still had video stores, I remember always being intrigued by the cover art of . For some reason I can't explain, I never took the step of actually renting the movie though.

I also vividly remember that was released in my country by the legendary Robbert Wijsmuller, through his company Concorde Film. Years later, I ran into Wijsmuller’s daughter Leonore Wijsmuller, who showed me a wonderful documentary she had produced about her father.

Being in the broadcast-television business at the time, I remember thinking that Leonore’s film would make for an awesome double feature with (), Rozemyn Afman’s documentary about her equally legendary dad. Sadly, my film-geek marathon never came to be.

But I digress…

Over the years that followed, the ominous image on the cassette box popped back in my head regularly. However, when rental stores went the way of the dodo, video nasties like all but disappeared with them.

I’ve never been able to find the movie on an SVoD or TVoD platform, so I figured tracking down a good-old physical copy would be my next best bet. I eventually managed to find a reasonably priced disc through UK-based speciality label 88 Films, and after tackling the usual UK / EU shipping issues, I was finally ready to watch the mysterious Nineties-Slasher that had eluded me for all those years.

stars undervalued Eighties-icon Lou Diamond Phillips as Russel Logan, an L.A. detective chasing a satanic serial-killer. Phillips is joined by Mykelti Williamson (curiously and phonetically credited as Mykel T. Williamson) and Tracy Griffith.

Writer-director Robert Resnikoff clearly drew inspiration for his film from the slew of psychopaths that terrorized the U.S. during The Eighties – the similarities between ’s “Pentagram Killer" and real-life murderer Richard Ramirez a.k.a. The Night Stalker for example, are obvious.

Sylvester Stallone's () might have been another touchstone, judging by Logan's mannerisms, apartment and wardrobe. This, of course, is not a bad thing. I love Marion Cobretti.

Resnikoff hired DoP Theo van de Sande to work the camera, and boy does my fellow countryman's crisp photography transfer beautifully to Blu-ray. I have to admit though, that the HD upgrade does reveal even more clearly how they pulled off the film's most impressive stunt. The light of the dawn can be cruel.

's most important plot-point was reused a few years later for the Denzel Washington - John Goodman starrer (). Fair enough. The idea of a demonic entity jumping from person to person is quite compelling, after all.

It's a shame Resnikoff's career apparently stalled after , and I haven't been able to find out what happened to him. The Nineties were the perfect decade for no-nonsense directors like Resnikoff, and I would have loved to see him calling the shots on a couple of Seagal / Snipes / Van Damme direct-to-video hits next.

In short – is a solid Slasher, and exactly the type of movie I should have discovered on VHS thirty years ago.

Long live physical media!

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Twitter (X): Robin Logjes | The Screen Addict