Navigation

Visiting Hours (1982)

Dir: Jean-Claude Lord

Racist, prejudiced, Women-hating psychopath Colt Hawker (Michael Ironside) attacks women’s rights journalist Deborah Ballin (Lee Grant) in her home and slashes her with a knife.
When Hawker discovers that his attack didn't kill Deborah, he goes to the hospital to finish her off.

Can Deborah get her TV Producer/lover Gary Baylor (William Shatner) to believe that she is still in danger, and will any of the other patients and staff, like Nurse Sheila Munroe (Linda Purl), also become victims of Hawker’s rampage as he lets no one and nothing stand in the way of hunting Deborah down?….

 

“Visiting Hours” has sadly remained hidden in the shadows for many years. It had a brief peak into the limelight on it’s initial (mixed reaction) release and, especially in the UK where it got caught up in the ‘Video Nasties’ scare, lived again on VHS for a short while before fading into ‘out of print’ obscurity until its recent ‘Anchor Bay’ DVD release.
And if there is any justice the DVD will grant this little Canadian gem the respect due to it.

Although not gory, and only mildly bloody, there is a recurring sadism in the movie as far as Colt Hawker’s method of killing his victims is concerned and his attitudes towards them while doing it.
He may only stick a knife into a Nurse’s back once, but we see that he ensures to give it a nasty twist while it’s in.
And after slicing open a life-giving air tube he causally sits on the victim’s bed and coldly stares at them as they slowly die in front of him, even taking photos of their final few moments of life.
In fact almost all the killings are coldly calculated and sadistically deliberate in their execution.
His kicking of a wounded female victim as she lies on the floor with a knife in her stomach, just so the photos he’s taking will be that much more interesting in their cruelty, is the sadean icing on top of this particularly rotten cake.

Given the fact that the ‘Slasher’ film elements are only really dressing on “Visiting Hour’s “ far more psychological thriller set-up (possibly why it gets so much undeserved criticism) it’s vital that the performances are up to scratch.
Lee Grant does a fine job at essaying her likeable character and although Deborah could easily have become a tiresome feminist preacher the careful writing (a fine screenplay by Brian Taggert) and performing means Deborah is in fact a legitimate, fair voice of reason and a ballsy heroine to boot.
Even the fact that what she spends her time fighting against, the aggressive male, actually comes into her life in the most violent of ways never results in an excuse for heavy handed speech making.
And that she isn’t your normal teenage Slasher lead is also a welcome change from the norm. Where Grant came across as basically hard and unlikeable from the very start (even before we learn of her corruption) in “Damian: Omen 2”, here she’s tough and independent but never puts up that hard, impenetrable wall between herself and the audience.
Shatner (during his “T J Hooker” era) is only really given a secondary support role and is by far the least of the four lead characters.
But he brings a charm (and seriousness) to his role and plays off Grant very well.

Linda Purl does a solid job as the caring Nurse and handles a later suspense scene very well.
Lenore Zann, (from the forgotten mini-gem “Bells” and “Happy Birthday to Me”) has a very nice extended cameo as a girl Hawker picks up and yet again writer Brian Taggert has given even this small support female character some nice characterisation and, above all, a real personality.
Look out for Harvey Atkin from “Cagney and Lacey” as well as one of the patients.

But it’s the ever welcome Michael Ironside (“Scanners”, “Starship Troopers”) who ultimately wears the acting crown here.
He’s simply great as the whacked out Hawker and effortlessly moves him from conscious-free sadist, to fully fledged make-up wearing loon, to a playful, if utterly malicious, child with practiced ease.
Hawker is neither retarded imbecile, nasty but bumbling amateur or stone-cold killing machine.
He’s in fact a fascinating to watch, crazy mixed up combination of all of these facets and as such comes across as a far more realistic creation than most cinematic psychos.

Women of all ages also seem to be drawn to the generally uninterested Hawker (all girls love a bad boy!) and this gives him a slight Ted Bundy feel as he uses (or simply discards) their attention for his own ends. Be it to inflict a cruel rejection of their advances or to lure them into his bed and thus make them the playthings of his vicious, knife wielding, psychosis.
Hawker also has an effectively sketched (as sketched it is, as that is basically all we need) background that goes some way to explaining his psychosis. But it’s never concrete and it’s never used in a preachy way to excuse him.
He’s also given a goodly amount of screen time as well. In fact this is a rare case where going over 90 minutes for a ‘Slasher type’ movie is justified, as the extra time ensures that all the major players are adequately covered and given lots of interesting little character moments.

And it’s to the film’s benefit that neither the psycho or his main target are the be all and end all of the drama. Lots of little extended sequences spent with the support cast (especially Nurse Munro) help keeps things fresh and interesting.

Away from the cast, performances and cruelty what gives “Visiting Hours” it’s strength is Hawker’s wonderfully written and crafted stalking sequences and his relationship at any given moment with the world around him.
Even after countless Slasher films, and many years on, we are never too sure in “Visiting Hours” if Colt is still lurking in a scene or not.
Will there be another victim in this scene or has he sneaked off until the next time?
Will he ignore this one potential victim or take a sadistic detour to coldly butcher them?
Will his ‘out of Hospital’ acquaintances also become victims?
How will his damaged mind tackle a specific event we follow Hawker into and will his need for violence overcome all and dictate the fate of those around him, whether they are part of his ‘mission’ to kill Deborah or not?
It’s rare that any Slasher film can keep such questions unanswered for so long and so often, but for the most part “Visiting Hours” does just that.
Even victims that stand out as victims are not always killed in the manner, or within the time frame, you may expect.
And almost all the stalking sequences (see below) are brilliantly edited and shot and director Jean-Claude Lord (who would join up with Ironside again in ‘89 for the even more obscure “Mindfield) delivers some well staged jumps and shocks.

There are some faults here though and almost all concern the final few minutes.
The hospital (actually a Veteran's Hospital in Quebec) seems overly lax in it’s most basic security (even after a murder) and is also unrealistically deserted during the finale (although this is pretty much the norm in such films) and this aforementioned finale also slips into far more conventional, easy to guess what‘s coming, ‘run from the killer’ conventions.
And although it’s still pretty effective as far as these things go it’s not as exciting a finale as it could have been and Hawker does seem to be overly clumsy and slow in his attempt to killing Deborah.

So the finale may not deliver as much as the rest of the film promised, but overall “Visiting Hours” is a wonderfully acted, very well made and written entry into the 80’s ’Slasher’ boom, which not only spends far more time on it’s characters than is usual but also delivers some finely crafted (and well placed) moments of tension, shocks and sadism.