Still Of The Night

 

 What in the name of God is a MERYL STREEP movie doing on Kindertrauma? Before you throw your computer out the window, let me explain. STILL OF THE NIGHT also stars the recently deceased and highly mourned ROY SCHEIDER (JAWS)! It is a quiet, slow boiling homage to HITCHCOCK (visually, it's more INTERIORS-era WOODY ALLEN) and although it wouldn't induce a goose pimple on your old Aunt Tilly, it was released in 1982 and sometimes that's enough. SCHEIDER plays Dr. Sam Rice, a psychiatrist whose patient may or may not have been killed (sadly off screen) by Brooke Reynolds (STREEP in her lone chain-smoking Femme Fatale performance. Between you, me and the lamppost she actually cleans up real good). O.K., that's sorta the whole plot, someone's trying to snuff ROY's light out too, and we're supposed to think it's the STREEP, but nobody does because that's far too obvious. The real reason that S.O.T.N. made it to these pink pages is because, at one point, ROY recounts his patient's Frued-orific dream which has a handy riddle inside, that once deciphered will reveal the real killer. This dream features a very scary little girl. In fact, she's so creeped-out that when she pulls her teddy bear's eye off, it bleeds real blood! The little waif proceeds to make like a pint-sized Freddy Krueger and chases the poor, soon-to-be-dead dreamer around a swanky Long Island abode. Ultimately, she bursts through a door with pupils painted on her eyelids and autumn leaves swirling about her head while an ear splitting scream blares. The dream sequence is pretty damn cool and, truthfully, so is the surprise ending where I promise you a knife does come into play in some capacity. The bad news is you will have to endure a non-thrilling auction house scene that tries to pry suspense from ROY passing STREEP a note undetected. STILL OF THE NIGHT is probably too still for most horror junkies but, the great part is, if you ever find yourself getting bored, you can always play spot the HITCHCOCK reference.

• Roy has an Uncle Charlie ala SHADOW OF A DOUBT
• STREEP sits in as the prerequisite blonde ice queen and JESSICA TANDY (THE BIRDS) is present as well
• Dreams play a large role (SPELLBOUND) and there's also an auction (NORTH BY NORTHWEST)
• STREEP conveniently moves into an apartment behind her alleged prey allowing for voyeuristic REAR WINDOW camera play
• That first step is a doozy! (VERTIGO)