John Carpenter’s Halloween triggered the start of the massive trend of slashers from 1978-1984, dubbed the Golden Age of Slashers, the vast bulk of which adhered to a similar formula in hopes of achieving the same level of success. As with any trends and subgenres, there were outliers of the standard slasher during this period. Among them was Fade to Black, a film produced by Halloween’s executive producer Irwin Yablans. Fade to Black bucked traditional slasher convention, but failed at the box office. Though it developed a cult following, home releases didn’t fare much better, further cementing its out of print obscure status.
Now available to stream on Shudder, Fade to Black finally has a chance to find the audience that’s slipped through its fingers all these years.
The standard slasher formula sees a maniac stalking and slaying their way through a group of unsuspecting people using various tools and weapons. Individual films swapped out settings, motives, and masks, but the core conceit remained the same. Distilled to its simplest terms, Fade to Black reads the same as well; a lonely film fanatic reaches his breaking point and embarks on a killing spree. Except, the movie isn’t that simple. There’s no whodunnit mystery here; instead, it examines the “why?” of it in an engaging character study.
Dennis Christopher (It, Necronomicon) stars as Eric Binford, a browbeaten, socially awkward employee at a film warehouse. He’s picked on by peers (one played by Mickey Rourke), abused by his aunt, and he’s a constant screw up as far as his boss is concerned. His sole comfort comes from his love of movies, and it’s become a full-blown obsession that permeates every aspect of his life. He speaks in references and movie quotes. He spends his hours after work attending repertory screenings at a local theater. Every inch of his personal space is adorned with film memorabilia. Then he meets Marilyn O’Connor (Linda Kerridge), a dead ringer for actress Marilyn Monroe. When she accidentally stands him up for their movie date, it’s followed by a series of incidents, snubs, and bad luck that pushes Eric over the edge into deranged madness.
What sets Fade to Black apart from the rest of its ilk is how Eric doesn’t exactly set out to become a serial killer. His first kill, his aunt, is an impulse decision that he doesn’t give a lot of thought; he snaps. Following that murder, Eric attends a screening of Night of the Living Dead completely decked out as Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. After, he chases a prostitute that spurned his advances, and, in a freak accident, she trips and impales her neck on a fence. In character, Eric drinks her blood. This moment serves as the point of no return for Eric, as he slips further from reality into his cinematic world of escapism. Moreover, Christopher imbues Eric with an empathetic vulnerability. Eric is a serial killer, but he’s also the protagonist.
Written and directed by Vernon Zimmerman, Fade to Black is a horror movie made by and for cinephiles. It’s most overt in Eric’s elaborate modus operandi of dressing up as his favorite iconic movie characters and tailoring his murders accordingly. He engages in a shootout as Hopalong Cassidy, then guns down a beauty shop as gangster Cody Jarrett. He terrifies his boss as the Mummy. The more he assumes these character personas, the more he loses himself in the process.
The only person to offer Eric any real kindness is Marilyn. That she loses track of time and stands Eric up isn’t the catalyst for his crimes; it’s meant to show just how narrow the window is for potential salvation. Not that she could’ve pulled him from the brink, because he only projects his desires for Marilyn Monroe on her rather than acknowledge her as a person. But the dangling carrot of kindness might’ve changed the trajectory of his story entirely. Instead, his extreme obsession wholly consumed him.
Fade to Black is all at once a tragedy, a love letter to cinema, a slasher, and a character study of a fracturing mind. That Zimmerman infuses many comedic moments for levity and Christopher shows off a sweet side to this deranged mind makes for a unique horror movie unlike any other. It’s easy to see why this failed to resonate, especially at the height of the slasher craze, but the timelessness of its themes ages it quite well.
The film is currently out of print on VHS and DVD, has yet to receive a Blu-ray transport stateside, and very rarely appears on streaming. At least not legally. That means its recent drop on Shudder makes for a Halloween treat you should devour while you can.
Before it fades to black once again.
