To this extent the film features Susan Tyrrell. Tyrrell, is not exactly a former Hollywood actress past her prime – she was only 36 when the film was made (although looks at least 46) – Tyrrell gives the impression of having been past her prime her entire life. Every role Tyrrell plays gives the impression that she goes on a major drinking bender just before shooting as requisite prepping for the role. The part here is one of the most perfectly suited she has ever been given. She lets all stops out and gives a leery, totally demented performance. She really gains her feet in the last quarter where the film throws all caution to the wind and joins her, going all-out with barnstormingly Gothic regard.

What is most fascinating of all about the film is its portrait of tormented psychology. Up against Tyrrell, Bo Svenson gives an equally fascinating performance as a cop who ignores all evidence to the contrary and pursues his own dogged agenda hounding young Jimmy McNichol with accusations of being a closet homosexual. What is most intriguing about the film is the fact that it doesn’t concentrate on the psychology of the psycho of the piece (Tyrrell) but rather on the psychology of the victim (McNichol) caught up in her schemes. In fact for once the psychology in a slasher film rings with an uncommon touch of authenticity and credibility. We see McNichol caught between a cloying, domineering mother figure with clearly incestual desires on him, between a tentative romance with his girlfriend, and between Svenson’s bullying cop figure who is determined to manufacture a case that he is gay and having a secret affair with his openly gay basketball coach.

The fascination and torridness of the psychological portrait and moreover its ring of authenticity makes one suspect that it is a personal story on the part of one or other of the screenwriters. Indeed the whole film reads as a fascinatingly couched story of one man’s struggle with divided sexuality – guy with a domineering and toxic mother figure uncertain whether he is gay or not, his standing up to try to assert his heterosexuality against a tormenting pseudo-father figure who accuses him of being gay, and at the end of cautiously accepting a traditional heterosexual relationship with his girlfriend. Although you’re not entirely sure though if the heterosexual relationship McNichol eventually settles for is one he would be entirely happy with. What is equally fascinating here is the ambiguity with which McNichol’s conflict is couched – in the sexual relationship with his girlfriend he is seen as being somewhat dysfunctional, while after conducting the murder at the end the first place he turns to seek solace and comfort is the blacklisted gay coach, and there is more than a touch of uncertainty in the fadeout on he and his girlfriend hugging. Quite possibly you suspect the screenwriters would have been quite happy to have McNichol go off with his coach but the morality of the day in 1981 would never have allowed that as an ending. Fascinating.