 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 1980 film Fade to Black and when I'm doing this review it's available for streaming on the Shutter streaming service so you can check it out there. Now it was written and directed by Vernon Zimmerman who's done the film's Deadhead Miles and The Unholy Rollers which I have not seen but if you have put some comments down here let me know if they're worth checking out. He did a good job with the directing. The directing looks good, the acting is good for the most part. A few not-so-great ones here and there but it starts Dennis Christopher as Eric Binford who obviously focuses very much on the character of Eric Binford. It's all about him pretty much. Although there are other characters in it, some of them feel like they make sense there but I would argue that the character of Dr. Moriarty and the police officers even though they get a little bit of screen time they don't really make sense in the film because they're kind of barely there and to have them in as much as they are just feels weird because it's more than you would assume for just being an idea in the film which is what they basically should have been with how focused it is on Eric Binford but not enough to be real characters in the film and they kind of end up feeling especially with Dr. Moriarty like they shouldn't even be there like they don't matter at all and they're not very well-written either so that's one of my big issues with the film but anyway Dennis Christopher was in the film's blood and lace doppelganger in five episodes of the show Deadwood which I actually just started watching for the first time so that's funny. Jango Unchained and he was also in the IT TV series from the 90s so that was interesting that's just a few of his now this film was actually nominated for some Saturn Awards but it ended up failing commercially but since then it's actually gained a cult following which not a big surprise there are a lot of you know 80s films and even further back that have done that 70s 80s 90s mainly have you know had a resurgence and this is no exception. Eric's film obsession in this in this movie is heavily established in the very beginning and they need to do that pretty much because that's what it's about obviously it's about Eric Binford being so obsessed with film and immersing himself in it so much that it starts him down the spiral where he loses touch with who he actually is and he basically takes on these roles of these characters in film but it seems like he's he only does it for bad reasons it's never to like benefit out of life it's only to enact revenge and do violent things basically and they lay the track pretty well for it because obviously in the beginning you see he's you know talking about film a lot he's watching film a lot you see his room that's one of the most important things for the setup is you see just movie stuff just covering at almost every inch of his wall and even in his bathroom at one point that you see so it gives you a really good immediate visual idea that he is obsessed with film you know it's not just fandom like having a little bit of stuff here and there like you know someone like me it is obsession because it covers everything also you have to notice at Eric's job that there was a Halloween poster up behind a burger when he's talking to him and also a tourist trap poster and I'm wondering if that had to do with the fact that I believe Charles Bann did some work on this film so I'm wondering if that's why the tourist trap poster was up there I don't know but you get the idea between his home life in the beginning and his job life that he's just getting bullied in life in general and I think that's that's kind of one of the main points of this film is that Eric feels like a nobody like he is pretty much a nobody in his life you know he doesn't get respect at home from his aunt who's actually you know you find out the end who's actually his mother and wouldn't even tell him the truth about that and she's even made up her own you know delusions about who she is as a person and then also obviously her relationship to Eric so she's bullying him at home making him feel terrible and then he goes to work and he can't get away from it there because his you know his boss is a bully to him the other guys that he works with are bullied to him one of them Richie played by Mickey Rourke by the way which is interesting to see him in that role but it's just terrible like his life is so bad and he feels so much like a nobody that his immersion in these films it's like he's living an alternate reality he's able to experience being someone else by being so obsessed and so involved with those films and then with you know whatever he may have a mental illness from the get-go which I would argue maybe comes from his his aunt his actual mother because you see that she's created in her mind a different reality like she's not living a real life she's created a whole lot of fake stuff in her life you find out towards the end that maybe there's a genetic mental illness at play here but regardless all these other societal things have kind of worked to push him over the edge and throw him into the films and with as much as he immersed himself into the films when things are at their worst for his life it's like the films then come out through him so it's the it's basically he consumes the films and then his life gets to such a bad point that the films then are coming back and they're inhabiting his body to the point where he doesn't even recognize himself as Eric Binford at one point and there are a few moments where you see you know the the characters that he's consumed so much are taking his body over basically but he you get these little glimpses of the actual Eric Binford showing back up like after he kills his aunt and he has a moment where he kind of realizes what just happened and he's crying in the bathroom or there was there was one other moment at least where he kind of like snaps back to reality but it becomes less and less and then you just see him spiraling further and further down and just inhabiting these other different characters from film until you you know you get to the end and he he even says there's who's Eric Binford I don't even know who this Eric Binford is and it seems like a lot of the characters he's actually inhabiting have to do with Cagney specifically the actor so it's it's interesting Eric's vision of the girl in the diner is Marilyn Monroe is your first indicator that he's not firmly living in reality and his film obsession is actually becoming unhealthy that is your first indicator that that is kind of where this path is headed with the film and it was set up pretty well when he thinks about violence toward a person and manifests as a violent sequence in his mind from a film that's kind of the inkling showing up that he will draw from violence in film to enact violence in reality it's in the beginning it's just showing up in his head as thoughts and then eventually it becomes actions he actually takes so he's holding it back in the beginning like the part where he you know has a clip of someone smacking a woman and that's when he had a bad exchange with his aunt and then he also has that sort of thing happen I think when he was dealing with Richie at one point had a similar type thing but he holds those things back he's maintaining at that point until he reaches his breaking point and then it's like he can't stop it and instead of him thinking about those sequences they come out of his body as actual real life violence and I find that an interesting concept with the film which is why overall I like the film because it's it's an interesting concept I talked about Dr. Mori already not feeling like he's a character that matters and to go along with that the scene where he's playing the harmonica like what is that like he's a he's a character that doesn't really matter that much and doesn't have much screen time so B why are you gonna put a scene in for that specific character that doesn't mean anything like it's and then it's weird because it's like his his harmonica playing seduces officer Oshun bull who he can't even remember her name later after he's already slept with her it's just like that whole sequence there you don't need it in the film it does absolutely nothing it's pointless and dumb it seems like it's leftovers from something else they were planning on putting in the film but ended up not doing so it just it shouldn't be there you definitely end up feeling for Eric in this especially if you're somewhat of a cinephile because as people are kind of cinephiles like myself you've all been to that place where either someone in your family or friends or other people you don't know have told you you know your obsession with film or your interest in film it's just such a waste of time you could be doing something else with your life and Eric ends up getting that a lot you know he gets it from his aunt he gets it from other people and you know you can kind of feel for that but also just seeing him bullied the way that he is it also makes you feel for him so it's an interesting setup for that reason but by the end you know you're just kind of like he's gone like the Eric that you were feeling for isn't there anymore he's inhabited by the psychosis basically the these films coming out as violence when Eric reaches his breaking point and kills his aunt it's like the movies takeover and Eric's barely there he even refers to himself at that point this is the first time he refers himself as someone else he calls himself Cody Jarrett which apparently is a name of a character from Cagney so yeah and they talk about that later Dr. Moriarty does his reality becomes a mix of the movies he loves brought into the world through his actions the scene where he starts painting his face because he does himself up kind of like Bella Legosi as Dracula really interesting visual when it's only half of it I thought that was a really awesome visual where half of it is him as a black and white character in film and then the other half was just him a it's visually very appealing and it's very cool and the fact that they start from like the normal side and then it slowly moves and you see the split and then the black and white side that's kind of a symbolic movement of him transitioning from the real life Eric Binford to transitioning to the film characters and them just being who he is from that point out and even so much so obviously that he ends up doing some really crazy stuff you can tell Eric will go further in this film violence wise when he ends up sitting forward and becoming even more engrossed in Night of the Living Dead in the theater at the very violent part the most violent part and shocking part with the the girl zombie with the trowel just doing the stabbing on I believe was her mother it's been a while since I've seen it but and that's what leads him on to then going after the prostitute and you know he doesn't actually kill her but then going that extra step of when she accidentally dies drinking her blood like he's embodying the character of Dracula that he's dressed up as I like the recreation of the psycho shower scene I thought that was cool and funny at the same time and the fact that instead of blood going down the drain it's actually ink now I do think at that point he says I just wanted your autograph but I think that he was actually playing on killing her because I only saw the pen and it seemed like he was actually holding it like he was gonna stab her but that he kind of gets snapped back to being Eric I think in that moment because of the girl scream because of Marilyn scream that's that moment that this kind of snapped him back so I thought that was interesting Eric killing Richie as a gunslinger is actually a really wacky scene it's kind of a fun scene because it's so wacky but at the same time it makes the film at that moment seem a little seem a little more ridiculous whereas the the scenes prior to that don't do that I would say also seeming a little bit ridiculous along with the gunslinger scene is like the gangster scene he does just because of the impression that he does of a gangster it's just funny how he voices that so those two scenes make it a little bit ridiculous and wacky it took way too long in this film to come back to Moriarty that's the other thing like I was saying that he seems like he's a character it doesn't really matter and he's kind of even barely there but there's also this huge chunk of time that passes since you last saw him and then they bring him back and it's like a short scene and you're just like why are you even coming back to him at this point like at this point just drop it because he doesn't matter it's clearly focused on Eric Binford you don't need these other characters Eric's detachment from reality takes the next step when he's trying to see Marilyn Monroe when she's been dead for almost two decades when he's outside taking photos and then talking to that guy at that restaurant let little like diner on the side and he's just like have you ever seen Marilyn Monroe come out of the building and he's just like dude she's been dead for years and then he like flips out because the guy's trying to break it his new reality basically but you see that's that next step of him just being gone at that point funny how Eric literally scares Burger to death his boss I like how they set up that whole scene where it was you know the lights going out and him getting kind of like chased around and he's dressed up as the mummy it's a cool scene it works really well and then the fact that he doesn't even kill him he literally scares him to death which I thought was a cool concept for it once again Eric's gangster impression is really funny maybe one of my favorite moments of the film also how he just you know goes in broad daylight not even covering his face and shoots up the guy which speaks to how much it's not Eric anymore and he's living in the movies basically Moriarty's statement that Eric is a victim of society is kind of true because of you know stuff I already talked about the bullying that ends up happening but also the whole situation of he's so much in a in a part of his life where like I was saying he doesn't feel like he's anybody and with movies I idealizing life and giving people this idea that you can be this and you can be that and it fills people's heads with ideas of grandiosity and it kind of goes to something that I talk about all the time is being a problem with movie movies and TV when it comes to romance the way that romance is portrayed in film is not true to life you know it's always this like when you meet the person you'll feel sparks and it's fireworks and then the relationship will be perfect throughout decades and you'll never have to work on any issues and it sets people up for an unrealistic expectation of what they're getting into and then when people buy into that because they've seen it so much they can't work through real problems in a relationship without feeling like the relationship is hopeless or needs to be thrown out or pointless so this film kind of speaks to that type of thing that I kind of talk about all the time in real life so the ending of this film seems kind of too drawn out and to be honest the whole film it's like an hour and 40 minute runtime for the most part and it doesn't have enough story for that in my opinion they draw it out too much it definitely should have been cut down like I was saying before cut out the Dr. Moriarty stuff for sure but the end just goes on a little bit too long they should have cut that down as well it's a good ending but yeah should have been cut down when he keeps saying all these characters names at the end when he's on the roof of the Chinese theater it's the showing that he you know he's flashing through these characters basically like he this is this is his moment before death and he's just reliving all these films like quickly before he ends up dying and it's also a more strong indicator of what I was saying before of him having been a nobody wanting to feel like somebody and he went through all these characters and then at the end as his life is flashing before his eyes and he's about to die all these characters are flashing and he's like I'm this character I'm this character I'm this character and it's his also his way of trying to say that he became something that like he reached a point of being a somebody at that point instead of remaining a nobody so I think for that reason it is kind of a powerful ending to it Eric's gradual spiral away from reality is well paced throughout the film and it is done in interesting ways mainly being the characters he becomes and how the kills happen so I did like that yeah and that's basically all I had to say about this film like I said it's definitely worth watching once to experience it's interesting I might watch it a second time just to see if I can pick up on some things I may have missed on it missed within it but overall it's a good film it's not a wonderful film or a great film like I said already covered it there are problems with it but I would recommend it so out of five stars with half stars in play I'm gonna go ahead and give it a 3.5 I think a three and a half is is right on for this film so let me know in the comments if you've seen this film what your thoughts on it are as well obviously we talk spoilers in the comments but I want to hear your opinions did you love it did you hate it were you in between all opinions welcome but do me a quick favor and hit that subscribe button it means a lot to me when people subscribe I'm not doing making money doing this or anything I'm doing it for the love of horror and if you love horror and if you like any of my videos I appreciate it if you pay me back by just hitting the subscribe button and if you do subscribe make sure you also hit the notification bell just to make sure that 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