How sad is this?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Julie (Mariana Hill) is an advice columnist for the city newspaper who begins to receive anonymous notes threatening murder and worse. At about the same time, female members of the group therapy session she attends are being stabbed, one by one, by an unknown assailant. Is there a connection? This film has a very low rating on IMDb as of August 2013. I am not sure how, but i suspect it is due in part to the very few people who have voted. Hopefully when the Blu-Ray is released, the film gets more respect. Currently, it sits below "X-Ray", which is just unfair.There is plenty of suspense, some good characters (Klaus Kinski and Christopher Lloyd never disappoint) and overall a pretty good mystery. You might have to guess two or three times before you figure out who the killer is (and yes, the clues are there).I highly recommend Scream Factory's DVD / BD of this film. While it has few special features, the picture and sound look great and it was nice to watch an interview with Donna Wilkes, who really needs to make the rounds at more horror conventions.

If you've set your mind to the fact that your going to view this low budget thriller than please don't expect to see something along the lines of "Psycho" or "Wait Until Dark" because this is eons away from resembling anything that well made. With that, despite all of it's faults you might still find this to be passable in terms of a late night viewing because the recognizable cast helps this film...in volumes! Story is about a Los Angeles psychiatrist named Pieter Fales (Klaus Kinski) who is a widower and having trouble with his angry and unbalanced daughter Alison (Donna Wilkes) who blames him for the death of her mother.*****SPOILER ALERT***** Dr. Fales is in charge of a weekly therapy group and he's sexually involved with two members including Julie (Marianna Hill) who has an advice column in the local paper and has been receiving strange letters from someone who contemplates murder. When members of Dr. Fales group start popping up dead the police (Richard Herd & Joe Regalbuto) start to wonder who might be responsible like Julie's ex-husband Doug (Craig Wasson), Gilbert (Christopher Lloyd) the horny maintenance man, Dr. Fales himself or the uncontrollable Alison.This is directed by David Paulsen who was a television writer but had also made another slasher-like flick earlier in his career but never seemed to make the best of his film efforts. Let's just come right out and say that Paulsen seems totally unable to deliver anything resembling suspense and the murders that we do see are shot in an incredibly clumsy manner and the music that accompanies these scenes (what happened Craig Hundley?) has got to be the worst I've ever heard. Talk about annoying! Two things that I noticed while watching this stand in my memory like the fact that Kinski smokes through the entire film. Besides the fight sequence at the end I can't remember one scene where he doesn't have a cigarette either in his hand or his mouth. In one scene Hill finally takes one away from him and puts it out! The second thing is the size of Dr. Fales house...it's the biggest thing I've ever seen! Scarlett O'Hara would be envious! I know psychiatrists make a pretty good living but...HOLY COW! This wouldn't be your typical 80's slasher flick without nudity and Kinski himself has two sex scenes with a stripper and Hill but it's the shots of a nude Wilkes (TV's Hello, Larry and B-film favorite Angel) that is primarily the highlight. The familiar faces in the cast help the viewer get through this (admittingly) sub par effort including Kinski (one of my personal favorites) but also Hill who was always a good actress. Sure it's bad, but I think it's a watchable bad film.

"Schizoid" is a fair early-80's slasher flick that suffers from a distinct lack of personality. It boasts a somewhat name, B-list cast, and derivative yet effective stalking scenes. Writer-director David Paulsen tries, in vain, to make everyone a suspect, but you eventually stop caring because of the clumsy script contrivances he expects us to swallow. But there's nothing here you haven't seen before, except maybe Klaus Kinski, wildly miscast but still highly entertaining as a marriage counselor who carries on affairs with his patients! I'm not ashamed to admit he kept me watching the whole way through. 2.5 stars out of 5.

It's crudely made, badly acted and crummy-looking. It has some of the stupidest dialogue you'll ever hear (sample: a man reads a threatening letter. First he says "I'm sure it's a hoax" and three seconds later he states that "It's obvious that whoever wrote this is a lunatic and capable of killing"!). And YET...(SPOILERS FOLLOW)I was determined to give this movie a "*" rating, but maybe it deserves another half-a-star because I was fairly certain the killer was Klaus Kinski and it was ultimately revealed that he wasn't. What remains unexplained is how could such an obviously perverse man be the psychiatrist (!) of a much more sane and well-balanced woman.