Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

The Fan (1981)

Director: Edward Bianchi

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Tacky adaptation of Bob Randall's novel in which (prefiguring the Jodie Foster case) a Broadway star's youthful fan (Biehn) graduates from epistolary devotion to homicidal mania when his overtures receive increasingly curt responses. Since impending shocks are loudly telegraphed in advance, and mainly comprise a series of virtually identical slasher attacks with open razor, the result is crude, nasty and predictable. Sole reason for watching the film is the wonderful Bacall as the toast of Broadway, currently celebrating yet another forty-ninth birthday, curling her basso purr round lines to make their banality sound like wit, and rehearsing a musical (songs by Marvin Hamlisch) that gives her the chance to strut her stuff as a song-and-dancer.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.