On H List of Movie Reviews

(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)


He Knows You're Alone (1980)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 6/20

HeKnows
6/20: The only reason why He Knows You're Alone barely sees the light of day is that it's Tom Hanks' first motion picture.

Yeah, but I didn't know it until I saw the DVD at a thrift store, looking at the pictures on the back cover and saying, "Hey, is that Tom Hanks?" Hence, I got motivated to watch it which capitalized on the slasher craze during the early 80's.

After appearing for a few minutes, it has gotten obvious that he's too good to be in the movie. His acting talent is like two levels above everybody else. I thought it would be interesting if his character either had a death scene like Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th or was revealed to be the killer. Yet he's only in it for like ten minutes and leaves intact just like how it happened for George Clooney in Return to Horror High.

The rest of the film is a real yawner with the most boring killer imaginable. The director's biggest mistake is displaying multiple perspectives; he follows between four and six different characters before settling on a dull, bland, and nondescript female whom I don't care about. And of course, she survives; the end. Many commenters said the film was a rip-off of Halloween. That's true, but I also see a lot of Black Christmas because of the cop angle.

I don't understand one scene when the killer latched himself atop the car's hood until he and the driver made to the morgue. Then, for a while there, the deceased woman was laid on the table when she wasn't supposed to be discovered until Monday after the wife was back home? Oddly, at the beginning, there were a bunch of guys ready to go upstate for a bachelor's party, and afterwards, I never saw them again.

All in all, only die-hard Tom Hanks fans should check out He Knows You're Alone; otherwise, it's a by-the-numbers slasher picture.