Schizo (1977)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Fresh and Exciting

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

'Schizo' is a very fun slasher flick and delivers on the blood and gore all the way through. The schizo's name is William Haskin (Jack Weston), a middle aged man who is sent in a sudden rage when he reads his newspaper and sees a headline that makes him snap. That headline says 'Ice Queen to Wed', and is referring to the ice queen Samantha (Lynne Frederick), a prominent and well known figure skater. Samantha is planning on marrying a wealthy man and this does not set well for William, for reasons we don't know yet.William somehow gets into Samantha's wedding where he places a giant bloodied machete next to the wedding cake, maybe a sign of what's to come. From here, people who are close to Samantha are meeting their gruesome demise by all means of violence, including one scene i had to close my eyes in involving a sharp weapon and an eyeball. I cringe still thinking about it. With most movies like this, there is some sort of long relationship between the killer and the victim he is after, and throughout the film we are slowly give clues with twists and turns to figure out the true story.This is a fun slasher flick with all of the 70s guts and gore with some gratuitous nudity from Lynne Frederick. By all means you most likely will be able to predict the outcome of this film early on, but Pete Walker does a good job of keeping it tense and flowing along.

Schizo is set in England & starts in the North East as a man named William Haskin (Jack Watson) reads a national newspaper, Haskin notices a story about ice skating champion Samantha Gray (Lynne Frederick) & her fiancé Alan Falconer (John Leyton) who are about to get married in London. Haskin takes a great interest in the story & heads off to London where he books into a hotel & starts making enquiries as to where Samantha lives, Haskin manages to discover where Samantha & Alan are holding their reception & posing as a waiter manages to leave a bloody knife next to the wedding cake which Samantha finds. Samantha then starts to get mysterious phone-calls & sees Haskin hanging around. Samantha starts to panic & confides in her friend & psychiatrist Leornard Hawthorne (John Fraser), soon after Leonard is murdered & he is just the first as other's around Samantha are also found dead but who is responsible & why?This British production was produced & directed by Pete Walker & to me felt quite similar to his next film The Comeback (1977) in which both the main character's start seeing & hearing things as those around them are killed off by a mystery killer who seems to have some sort of connection to the lead, I gave The Comeback four stars out of ten & I see no reason not to award Schizo exactly the same as it's not really any better but at the same time no worse. Schizo takes a while to get going, the first murder doesn't happen until about the hour mark so there's a lot of talk to get through which doesn't really amount to much. Sure, some may say it's necessary build-up but I'd rather describe it as padding & at an hour & fifty minutes long Schizo really didn't need any padding. The central mystery isn't that good or engaging, in fact the title of the film gives the entire twist away & I will say that I guessed the twist quite easily due to the script trying far too hard to single one character out as the killer & it's fairly obvious that they haven't killed anyone. The script takes itself very seriously & seems to think it's the cleverest thing around, while the majority of Schizo is set in the real world & tries to paint the mysterious goings-on with scientific credibility there is one totally out of place scene set at a séance which verges into the supernatural for no apparent reason. Schizo feels like a Pete Walker film, the middle class English setting & the inadequacies of authority & justice are constant themes throughout his films & they are very much evident here. I can't say I hated Schizo as it has it's moments but I found the mystery aspect weak & too predictable while there's not quite enough gore here to satisfy the exploitation crowd as Schizo falls somewhere between exploitation & psychological thriller. The ambiguous ending doesn't help end things on a positive note either, while Schizo tries to be clever & deep in it's depiction of schizophrenia it ends up looking silly so don't base any psychological studies on it.With a very middle class mid 70's British setting Schizo is one of those films that could be used in history lessons as it show's lots of fashions (I'd like to see someone wear that red bobble hat in public today that Haskins does in the opening), cars & locations as they would have been in reality back then without any fancy production design or window dressing. There's a bit of gore, someone gets a knitting needle through their head & out their eye, someones head is bashed in with a hammer & someones throat is slit although none of these scenes are that gory. The bloodiest bit is during a flashback where a naked woman is brutally stabbed several times. Schizo isn't that scary & doe shave it's daft moments like the end as a shocked panting Samantha just stands there as a demented Haskins walks up behind her pulling some very silly faces & just how did that meat cleaver get into her super market shopping trolley?Filmed entirely on locations the production values are good & it looks alright, the acting is OK with Frederick the ex-wife of Peter Sellers quite good as the lead. Stephanie Beacham has yet another minor role in a British horror film but sports a very ugly hair style.Schizo is an OK horror thriller that thinks it's smarter than it is, there's a touch of gore & a real world look & while it's not terrible I doubt I would ever want to see it again. A passable time waster that Pete Walker fans might get more out of than the average viewer.

Not really prime Pete Walker; rather an attempt by the director to do a stalker / slasher picture, after the Italian giallo fashion.Walker does treat us to some surprising and vivid scenes, ample shock moments and a fine use of locations - mid-70s Britain is once again a fascinatingly grim locale, as in some many films of the era! However, the crucial 'twist' is rather poor, straining all credibility that the film had.The uncannily ubiquitous Jack Watson is actually quite sinister though, and Stephanie Beacham once more plays the very middle-class friend type as in other British horrors of the era. Lynne Frederick - to be wed to Peter Sellers the following year - is another of PW's sexy heroine-in-peril leads and, like many such characters, is not incapable or entirely cardboard. John Leyton, singer of the stupendously eerie Joe Meek-produced #1 hit 'Johnny Remember Me' (1961), is bizarrely cast as Frederick's husband, providing as much screen presence as the elusive Zeppo Marx. Sheila Keith is missing.While this is a definite retreat from PW's previous nasty fairy tales - "House of Whipcord", - it still has a certain appeal for those who don't mind a bit of well-crafted 1970s exploitation. Those who view films purely in terms of gender politics should obviously stay well clear!

Psychological terror tale from popular British cult director Pete Walker concerning the effects of a supposedly paroled murderer on an ice skating pro, recently married to a garment factory boss.Lynne Frederick is Samantha, celebrated "Ice Queen" tormented by William Haskin(Jack Watson), the man convicted for the savage knife-stabbing of her mother. It seems as if Haskin's goal is to terrorize and kill Samantha, finishing what he started ten years prior to her mother. But, everything might not be as it seems and Samantha's newlywed husband, Alan(John Leyton)and gal pal, Beth(Stephanie Beacham, adding a bit of star power to the little thriller)are starting to question her sanity. When people Samantha knows start turning up dead, murdered in horrible ways(..sliced throat, hair pin through the eye, hammer clubbing to a skull), could she be next on the list? Director Pete Walker establishes a weird vibe, and his camera-work is tightly confined and, often, quite claustrophobic, shooting the cast really close, capturing nuances in the expressive faces of both Frederick and Watson, noting that often what is not shown is just as important as what is(..especially in the case of Samantha whose odd behavioral shifts are important to the overall story). The spine-chilling score, by Stanley Myers, adds just the right tone to the proceedings.Samantha's mood swings give Walker's movie an extra strange quality that only adds punch to the crazy twist. The motivation for the murders is pure Walker, a sordid sexual scenario sets off the horrors that will take place. One of Walker's more violent movies, and Frederick is nude several times to , both adding sizzle to his shocker. Something you'd might see on a chiller theater program, perfect midnight movie viewing. I'm guessing, Schizo is great drive-in fare. John Fraser is Samantha's reliable shrink and Queenie Watts her eccentric housekeeper, Mrs Wallace, both receiving gruesome fates. While Beacham has a secondary role, it's important as she sleuths for Samantha, hoping to put the whole "stalker" nonsense to rest, endangering herself in the process.