Starring: Kirstie Alley, Joseph Bottoms, Lana Clarkson, James Daughton, Keir Dullea Average Rating: Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Image Entertainment Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: January 14, 2003 Running Time: 102 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 1984-06
Description: Accidentally blinded, John Ratcliff (Joseph Bottoms) has a "seeing eye" computer chip implanted directly into his brain, only to witness a murder and see the serial killer--but only in bold outline. The cat and mouse game begins in this riveting shocker featuring Kirstie Alley, "Star Trek: The Next Generation's" Marina Sirtis, and "2001: A Space Odyseey's" Keir Dullea. Now available for the first time in Nico Mastorakis' director's cut, "Blind Date" has been newly remastered and features extensive bonus material including never before seen footage of Kirstie Alley's daring love scene.
Typical '80's Cheesefest Just finished watching this after having it for about a year or so and finally getting around to it. Well, I guess I could've waited even longer because it wasn't very good or really worth seeing at any particular time. I've seen worse so I was still able to sit through it and besides, it's loaded with typical nondescript 1980's music by unknown acts (at least here in the States, probably), bad acting, bad photography, bad special effects, bad writing and bad directing, so watching it was a kind of excercise in sadomasochistic patience. If you're a connoisseur of bad films then this one will certainly delight you.
The Adventures of Sonar Boy and the case of the Killer Cabbie... So what is the main appeal of the film Blind Date (1984)? It's not the acting, and definitely not the story...well, if you're a Star Trek fan, how about the chance to see a topless Kirstie Alley (Lt. Saavik in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan) and Marina Sirtis (councilor Deanna Troi from the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" television series)? Four good reasons right there, if you ask me...produced, written, and directed by Nico Mastorakis (The Zero Boys, Ninja Academy), who's sort of a Greek Roger Corman, the film stars Joseph `I'm not Timothy' Bottoms (The Black Hole) and the aforementioned Kirstie Alley, albeit a much slimmer one than the Pier One/Jenny Craig pimpette we're familiar with today. Also appearing is James `Greg Marmalard' Daughton (Animal House, Spies Like Us), Lana Clarkson (Deathstalker, Barbarian Queen), a name certainly known to any lover of bad movies, and Keir Dullea, probably best known for his role as Dr. Dave Bowman in Stanley Kubrick's seminal science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)...you've come a long way, boyo...
The film starts out at a carnival, with a woman leaving via a cab. On arriving home, she strips (exposing some large nips), showers, and then hears a noise that she proceeds to investigate. Turns out, not only hasn't the cabbie left, but he's entered her home, perhaps for a better tip...nope, he's there to operate (literally) as he chloroforms the woman and pulls out a scalpel...we then switch to meet our main character named Jonathon Ratcliff (Bottoms), an American in Greece, working as an executive for an ad agency. During a swimsuit photo session in a mall (yes, that's a young Valeria Golino in a bikini), he thinks he recognizes one of the models as a girl from his past, but can't be sure...back at the office we meet Jonathan's braless girlfriend/co-worker Claire Simpson (Alley), to which they meet up again later at her place for Jonathon's birthday celebration which involves a little boom shakalaka with Claire (hello boobage), and I'm reminded of a saying involving not dipping your pen in the company ink...anyway, Jonathan becomes somewhat obsessive over the model he thinks is a woman from his past (turns out she suffered an incident, while in his company, one which he couldn't prevent) and begins stalking her, but ends up hurting himself badly after a chance meeting with a low hanging tree branch. Subsequently he's now blind, but learns of an experimental procedure involving sonar and a visual synthesizer that might allow him to see again. He signs up, and the operation's a success to some degree...he can see, by using implants in conjunction with a device that looks a hell of a lot like a Walkman, which creates only outlines sans the details, but hey, Atari-Vision is better than nothing, right? By chance, Jonathan witnesses one of the serial killer's murders, and now is being stalked by said killer, who picks up on the woman Jonathan thought he knew from so long ago...Jonathan realizes this, and now the hunted becomes the hunter as he must do what he was unable to do so long ago in protecting the woman he thinks is the girl he once loved...
I mentioned that Nico Mastorakis (who, by the way, sure likes breasts, as much as he shows them) reminds me of the Greek version of Roger Corman because they both make cheap films, often using actors who to gain popularity later in their careers, or else actors who were more popular, and have since fallen into the cinematic equivalent of purgatory, relegated to appearing in craptacular films like this...surprisingly, I thought the film had some really decent production values, but then again, it's probably fairly inexpensive to shoot in Greece than in America (the film is set and shot in Athens). As for the rest, well...touted as an erotic thriller, it was hardly erotic, and hardly thrilling, especially given the lack of interest in the characters. A bunch of topless women hardly qualifies as erotic, along with two characters I could care less about rolling around between the sheets. In terms of thrilling, the whole serial killer aspect was quite lame, especially since all we know is he's someone who drives a cab, all of his victims being comely woman who he just gave a lift to, and wears Velcro strapped shoes (which I thought were only worn by people unable to tie their own shoes like small children or extremely old men)...we know this because any shots featuring the killer are either annoying point of view (POV) shots, or even more annoying shots of the killer's extremities (his feet as he's walking, or his hands as he's preparing to `operate')...any halfway competent police force would have picked this guy up in relatively short order, but the movie is scattered with scenes of him attacking one woman after another...and this is where Marina Sirtis comes in...she's not a character in the story, but a victim. She plays a streetwalker who gets a ride home in the cab, and subsequently suffers the same fate as a number of others. I will say Ms. Sirtis had, at the time, an amazing set of sweater puppies, which we get to see in great detail...oh Councilor Troi! As far as Kirstie Alley's breakout scene, it is brief but there, and worth it...and, if you want to see more, watch the included featurette titled `The Films of Nico Mastorakis (Part One)' as they include the omitted footage of said scene, a good deal of it removed at the time for fear it would have been too racy. The plot is relatively straightforward, but complicated with a lot of nonsense like Jonathan, after becoming blind, venturing out into the world. He ends up in a subway, attacked by a gang of youths who appear to be rejects from the cast of West Side Story. Later on, after his operation and his somewhat restored vision, he returns to the subway where he was beaten and robbed under the pretense of being blind, hoping to confront those same street ruffians, and beats the snot out of them with the aide of a lead filled walking stick, which is about as violent as the film gets, as all of the serial killer sequences end right before he begins his cutting. And then there's the obsequious 80s rock musical scoring...egads! Too bad the killer didn't do away with the composer...that would have certainly been a victimless crime. All in all the film really isn't worth seeing, except if'n you got the Jones to see some boobage of starlets who later became famous (you know I do). If you're looking for a wonderfully suspenseful story featuring a blind character tormented by a sadistic killer, check out the 1968 film Wait Until Dark, featuring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin.
The widescreen (1.85:1), enhanced for 16X9 TVs, picture on this DVD looks decent, but does contain minor print damage at a number of points. The DVD case claims this is a remastered director's cut, so I would have to hated to seen what it looked like prior. The audio comes through well, and claims Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, along with Dolby Digital Stereo. Special features include a trailer for the film, a featurette titled `The Films of Nico Mastorakis (Part One)', which runs about 56 minutes and is worth watching for the omitted Kirstie Alley romp scenes, isolated music tracks (oh the horror), filmographies/biographies, and previews for other Nico Mastorakis films including In the Cold of the Night (1991), Sky High (1985), Bloodstone (1988), and .com for Murder (2002). All in all 2 stars for the film, plus one extra for the fleshy pillows...
Cookieman108
By the way, after the credits end, there's text stating Jonathan Ratcliff, the main character in this film, will return in Run, Stumble, and Fall...I checked, and, surprisingly, no such films has yet to be made...wishful thinking on Mastorakis' part, I suppose...
AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!! This is a B movie. But it takes itself too seriously and has no charm. The acting is wooden particularly that of Joseph Bottoms. The incongruous accents with greek thugs speaking in Clockwork Orange voices really jars. The little bits of gratuitous nudity are ludicrously interposed and if you buy the movie for the Kirstie Alley scenes you will feel fairly short changed. The plot might have worked with a decent writer, decent director and better acting but it doesn't have any of these.
More blind than anything else. I must say that this movie felt like a cross between THE TWILIGHT ZONE and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.
The plot of the story is very bizarre. First, there is a serial killer on the loose. Second, a man goes blind from a knock on the head. Third, the blind man uses a souped-up walkman that allows him to "see." Fourth, the blind man somehow is able to track down the serial killer.
If you choose to sit through the entire movie, then never mind the summation. However, the whole film comes across like a very long, drawn out joke that has a cheesy punchline. Also, the special effects are absurdly bad (even by 1980s standards).
About the only thing the movie has going for it is a healthy amount of nudity, including a topless scene of STAR TREK's Mirina Sirtis. There is a flash of Kirstie Alley's nipple, but it IS only a flash and it is in the dark. Not enough to justify the cost of the DVD.
If you like to see "B" movies with "A" movie actors, this one might be worth seeing - for curiousity's sake. I have no idea how Kirstie Alley ended up in this one after being in some big-name films. Bottom line with this one: buyer beware.
A viewer got it right! A Viewer got it right except he gave it one to many stars. Disjointed and boring. Skip this one!
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