Vomitron_G
I recently found a copy of this film on video at a video-store which was selling ex-rentals. I instantly remembered the cover (which was kind of cool and not shown here on IMDb - It was drawn by E. Sciotti who did the artwork for DEMONS, PHENOMENA, GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE, NEON MANIACS,...) and the title from the days when I was an 11-year old kid. It also read on the cover "From the man who brought you HALLOWEEN - Moustapha Akkad presents". So, I guess any fan of horror-movies would give this one a chance, no? Well, was I in for a surprise...The storyline: A dying woman, sitting on a porch in broad daylight, hands over her baby to an unsuspecting teenager asking her to protect it from her husband... who's lying in a coma in a mental institution. The teenager and her friends decide to go to this villa (to party, what else for) while being tracked down by the husband's döppelganger (emerging out of his sleep using some astral-projection or something)Does this sound cool to you? Well, it's not. While this could be the premise of a more or less original supernatural slasher movie, instead you get bored to death, real slowly and painful.The characters are all stupid, retarded or just plain weird. Even the baby looks like a mongloïd (so it's very funny when someone says "Oh, he's so beautiful") There's also an old bum with mental issues who lives in the trunk of a car. The detective, Kowalski, who tries to track down the husband/forestking/demi-god/döppelganger/killer(dig this?) has almost nothing to do. He always arrives too late at the scene of the crime, always sets fire to his car with his cigarettes (which is actually kinda funny and a good excuse to insert a car-explosion in the plot) and doesn't even save the day at the end of the movie. But he IS the best actor of the whole cast.Then there's the villain. Who does even less than nothing. He's supposed to be an Egyptian Demi-God or something, but he has absolutely no special power whatsoever (except the fact that he can't be killed by bullets or fire). Most of the time he's standing in the dark, waiting, walking around or just sitting and contemplating. But he does carry a knife and crashes through a window (most exciting scene of the movie). But, face it, nobody crashes through a window like Jason Voorhees does!I think there's a bodycount of five in the movie, but all of the killings are offscreen (yes, total rip-off). Or maybe at one point you see something rolling over the ground for approximately 1/3 second. I think that was supposed to be a decapitated head.Needless to say the production-values were rather low on this movie. But they did manage to hire some dancers to do this hilarious 80's dance-scene with awesome choreography ("Why?", I kept asking myself, "Why?") How they eventually kill the villain, I will not give away in this review, but I can say that the dance-scene seemed to have a purpose after all... (curious? Rent the movie)Oh, did I tell you about the completely unnecessary subplot about a traumatic experience of teenager Heather, involving a baby and a bathtub, which she expresses through her paintings (watch the almost incomprehensable flashbacks)One more thing I liked about this movie was the mesmerizing look of the plastic tree with the white light coming out of it, symbolizing everything our godly villain stands for (I guess).I almost forgot: this movie has some scenes in it which contain gratuitous nudity (but what do you want, it has teenagers in it)OK, enough said! Except for the fact that Moustapha Akkad wasn't even on the credits of this film (only a production-assistant named Malek Akkad was mentioned in the end-credits). He must have had the common sense to realize he didn't want to have his name linked with this picture. A shame the promotional staff used it anyway.The only good thing about this really bad movie I now proudly own is the nice cover by E.Sciotti. So for all you good horror-movie lovers out there: A year before this movie got released, another movie about a supernatural killer which emerges out of dreams was made: A NIGHTMARE ON ELMSTREET. So go see that one, or any episode of the HALLOWEEN movies or , hell, you can even check out THE GUARDIAN if you like your horror mixed up with mystical nanny-villains, trees and babies. But avoid APPOINMENT WITH FEAR at all costs, unless you have the right sense of humour or like to be amazed by a movie that set new standards for unlogical film-making in 1985.
alansmithee04
A thoroughly disagreeable entry into the slasher genre, this film began life as "Deadly Presence". After the producers saw how gawd-awful the film really was, they fired Thomas and shot some more footage. Gowan's detective character and a bunch of others were added in a sort of parallel story and the whole thing renamed "Appointment With Fear." Aside from a couple of performances, this cinematic disaster's only redeeming value is its score. Written by ace composer Andrea Saparoff, the music is the only thing lending a little eeriness to what is otherwise an hour and a half of scare-free tedium.Recommended audience: Weevils, chunks of granite, D-cell batteries and very very minor Egyptian deities only.
waha99
Horrible, dreadful stuff. You know you're in for a film with little inspiration behind it when a mid-80's dance number in inserted in what could have turned out to be the best scene of the whole flick-the sex scene!
Sad and insipid; it makes other horror films of the 1980's look great in comparison.
Ed Cowell
I fast-forwarded through most of this movie searching for something, anything interesting,but never found anything. A bunch of bland morons stalk around in the dark and some guy lies around in a coma,and he's possessed by a tree spirit or something. Moustapha Akkad went from HALLOWEEN to THIS. A complete waste of valuable celluloid.
