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The Comeback (1977)

Dir: Pete Walker.

British horror director Pete Walker gives popular 'housewives favourite' singer Jack Jones a starring role as crooner Nick Cooper who has returned to England, after a move to L.A and a failed marriage to record his comeback album. Little does Nick know that his ex-wife Gail (Holly Palance, the Daughter of veteran actor Jack Palance and who is still best known as the ill-fated nanny in "The Omen"), has been butchered by a figure in an old lady mask wielding an axe. Her body now lies rotting in the apartment they used to share.

The divorce had been bitter and Nick can't face Gail or the apartment, so his manager, Webster Jones, (David Doyle) arranged for Nick to stay at a remote house being looked after by an old couple. The couple, who say they're fans, are simply called Mr. B (Bill Owen) and Mrs. B (the marvelous Sheila Keith, a regular in Walker's horror films). Webster Jones has his assistant Linda (Pamela Stephenson) look after Nick and soon an attraction grows between the two.

But strange things are afoot at the house, and at night, Nick hears mysterious crying and moaning. Disturbed, he is assured by the old couple and his manager that he must be imagining it. But when he opens a door and comes face to face with a skeletal corpse, and discovers a rotted head that looks like Gail, it seems he's either going mad or something sinister and frighteningly real is going on. Then the masked killer strikes again…

 

Unlike Pete Walkers "House of Whipcord", "Frightmare" and even the ill fated old horror star vehicle "House of Long Shadows", "The Comeback" is one of Walkers lesser known films, and there's reason for it too.

Basically, it's much too long and padded with the romance sub-plot between Jones and Stephenson. This has the viewer crying out for blood, literally. The murders are few and far between and the film plays like a drama more than a suspenseful horror film. What makes this even more annoying is that the murders are actually very well done. Fast, violent edits help create truly savage attacks. Walker does not shy away from the blood either, and the opening murder of Gail is very graphic and nasty. Her body is also used to great effect as Walker pops back into the apartment every so often to show us, in wonderfully gratuitous and grizzly detail, the undiscovered corpse. Eventually ending with the face being chewed on by a rat!

But these macabre flourishes are rare and for the most part we are just left in the company of the dull characters and even duller actors.
Jones is bland and the only real 'good' point about his performance is that we are treated to an ear bashing from his cheesy singing. This sequence, in the recording studio, is hysterical and cringe-worthy as Jones belts out this dreadful ballad with more energy than the rest of his performance put together.
Stephenson (ex-comic and wife of actor/comedian Billy Connelly) is very attractive and indulges us with some mild nudity, but is otherwise a stock female horror character.
Doyle (Bosley from TV's "Charlie's Angels") gives us a cliche selfish manager turn, but does have one delightful bizarre scene when we see him skulking behind his curtains in a hair net and baby doll makeup!
Owen (late British TV comedy actor) is given little to do but talk to injured trees (yes, I did say that) so we are only left with the ever reliable
Sheila Keith ("Frightmare") and she's in great sinister form and at one point delivers a truly wild crowd pleasing rant that reminds us what a shame it is she is not more well known.

The script is also a mess and jumps all over the place, never really knowing what kind of film it's trying to be (the strange final scene is an unexpected treat, but is a perfect example of the filmmakers not being sure what kind of movie they are making), and this schizophrenic approach also applies to the 'who dunnit' plot.

We are given various red herring suspects, but their guilt is forced down the throats of the viewer in such obvious, cliché filled ways (like Webster Jones wiping blood off his hands after Gail's murder) that we in fact come to the conclusion it can't possibly be them. The final nail in the mystery killer plot though, is that Walker, despite paying the aforementioned lip service to the who dunnit tale, never stops making it clear who the killer is. And anyone familiar with his other film will know who's involved in the killings as soon as they make an appearance!
We do have a cameo treat with Richard Johnson (from Fulci's seminal "Zombie") giving a suitably earnest performance as a doctor trying to assure Nick, that the gruesome 'hallucinations' are all in his head.

So ultimately we have a flat bloated psycho story with (Keith excluded) lackluster performances and snail's pacing. The savage murders do add a spark of gruesome energy to the proceedings, but sadly not enough of a spark to do anything but leave "The Comeback" lying dead on the slab.