Woodyanders 1943. Evil and unscrupulous mill foreman Pink Gresham (well played to the despicable hilt by Bill Smitrovich) gets murdered in a small backwoods town in rural Virginia. Gresham's mousy widow Maggie (a solid and sympathetic portrayal by Kathy Baker) gets paid a visit by mysterious drifter Baston Morris (a fine performance by Peter Weller), who openly admits that he murdered Gresham and seeks refuge in Maggie's home.Writer/director David Saperstein delivers a strong and flavorsome evocation of the 1940's period setting as well as an equally potent and unnerving sense of isolation and vulnerability, with the remote island location that's being terrorized by a pack of wild dogs coming across as especially well-realized. Baker and Weller do stand-out work in the leads, with sturdy support from the always dependable John Glover as meddlesome local minister Sheb Sheppard. Both John Barry's moody score and the handsome cinematography by Dominique Chapuis are up to par. However, the often sluggish pacing and frequently meandering narrative make this one a bit of a rough slog to get through at times. Those flaws aside, this film overall still sizes up as a pretty engrossing and effective outing.

classicsoncall Call me crazy, but I just don't think it's EVER a good idea to sleep with an ax-murderer. Of course, Maggie Gresham didn't know that at the time, but she DID know the soon to be revealed maniac killed her own husband, lout that he was. I'd never be so cold as to say the guy deserved it, but he was asking for trouble right from the opening scene.To be fair, Baston Morris (Peter Weller) did keep you guessing with his soft spoken demeanor and repeated promises not to hurt Maggie. You just had to overlook the ax in the headboard that one time he got his back up. How he figured to replace his dead family with a live one is how this story plays out, but there are red flags all over the place if you're paying attention.The bit with the wild dogs roaming the Gresham island was effective for an additional horror component, and now that I think about it, why did the residents let that go on for so long? But it did set up that perfectly grisly ending, even though we don't get to see it. Quite honestly, there aren't any redeeming characters in this flick unless you count the two absent Gresham children, who by the end of the film still didn't know their Dad was a goner.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Pink Gresham, Bill Smitrovich, wasn't exactly a model citizen or loving husband he was a down-right lowlife scoundrel.Abusing and flaunting his infidelities in front of his long-suffering wife Maggie, Kathy Baker, and his two children as well as ripping off those who worked at the Parrish Mill, where Pink was the manager, of their hard-earned pay the fact that he ended up hacked to death hanging upside down at the smoke-shed on his property was no surprise to anyone. The surprise was how under the circumstances and who committed it, Pink's murder! even more sinister the real reason behind it.A movie that takes you to places thats, as far as I know, never gone before in a horror movie and ends up with the unleashing of the dogs of hell that put a gory end to the devil incarnate who was responsible of the murderous acts in the film.Maggie finding her husband Pink murdered is in a panic as she runs to her only neighbor Vinia, Rhetta Hughes, on the almost deserted island in W. Virginia that she lives on for help. Only to be told that there's nothing she, Vinia, could do with a pack of vicious dogs running loose on the island that already killed one of her children. Back at the house Maggie is startled to find a stranger knocking on her door looking for her husband to get work at the Parrish Mill. The stranger Baston Morris, Peter Weller, comes across as a strange and somewhat innocent person at first. But before Maggie can compose herself from the shock of Pinks death he, Baston, lets out the fact that he indeed murdered her husband. Terrified of the creepy Baston and what he can do to her Maggie is trapped with nowhere to go for help and a prisoner in her own home. Then something happens that is so startling, by what Baston told her about Pink that it turns Maggie's fear and panic of him into sympathy and even has her falling in love with him! To where when her Brother Sheb, John Glover, a local preacher came with the sheriff, to see if everything was all right with her and Pink She hides Baston in her bedroom. Protecting him for being arrested by the local police for her husbands murder! little did Maggie know what the truth was about Baston and that truth instead of setting Maggie free was going to free her of her life and the lives of her two children in what Baston's sick mind had in store for her and them. Very good debut by director David Saperstein who gives the movie a very professional look. But it's the eerie and rural Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde performance of actor Peter Weller as Baston Morris that really pushes the movie "A Killing Affair" to the front of the line. Makng it one of the most scary and effective, as well as unknown, horror films of the 1980's. Weller in his portrayal of the dangerous as well as at the same time almost likable Baston shows that evil can come to us in almost any kind of package or appearance.

rsoonsa Based on Robert Houston's potent novel: "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday", this film relates of Maggie Grisham (Kathy Baker) who finds herself espaliered to a man who has just killed her husband, and who then takes shelter with her from his pursuers, in her rural West Virginia home which is nestled in a jungle of trees and brush, surrounded by packs of feral dogs. Obviously not terribly pleased with the interloper, Baston Morris, played pungently by Peter Weller, Maggie is inexorably drawn physically to him, partially since her late husband, Pink (Bill Smitrovich) was not faithful to her and was widely recognized before his demise as a man of inferior character who preyed upon the wives of those he supervised at the mill where he was foreman. From flashbacks, we discover that the wife and children of Morris were slain shortly before the death of Pink Grisham, and that the fugitive believes that the foreman was their murderer to avoid becoming entangled with the family as Morris' wife had decided to leave him for his boss and this, therefore, is why Morris had killed him: an act of retribution. The substance of the narrative becomes an attempt to determine if Morris is what he claims to be, a wronged man bent upon revenge, or something either better or worse, and Maggie is increasingly swallowed by her curious dilemma of finding herself possibly in love with her husband's killer who may, in fact, be a madman. There is a baroque quality to this work, with an appropriate thematic score electronically organized by John Barry, and a goodly amount of symbolism borrowed from the novel, as adapted by director David Saperstein, especially relating to the river which borders the Grisham property and which serves also as a cinematic boundary. Although an entry at the AFI Festival in Los Angeles, the film has been sadly neglected since; its almost balladic nature is strengthened by the fine editing of Patrick McMahon, the production design of John Jay Moore, and the costumes of Elizabeth Seley, with the latter pair accurately reprising the scenario's 1943 setting. Weller performs nicely in a role which allows for dramatic development and Baker is convincing as a mother and sudden widow who is unexpectedly exposed to circumstances and emotions of which she has no experience, and the action is most effective when these two are alone together; the remainder of the players are well cast, with only John Glover, as Maggie's brother, lacking his customary steam in his portrayal.