johan fritz (methmaga) If you like the classics, bogart,monroe, brandon etc and also appreciate obscure horror like fulci, damato, ndeodato, chances are that you will fin this movie ubercool! i certainly did.

Sam Panico A movie about a socially awkward, totally obsessed film fan whose love of old films borders on the obsessive, with nights filled with movie after movie after movie? This one hits a little too close to home.Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher, Breaking Away) works in a Los Angeles film distributor warehouse by day and watches movies by night. He' the guy I was referring to earlier - someone so into movies he gets bullied by his family and co-workers. And when he meets Marilyn O'Connor, who looks like Marilyn Monroe, he finally finds someone whose looks are similar to the movie ideal that life does not always achieve. Or maybe he's just so crazy that when he sees her, he goes into a fantasy fugue state and only sees what his brain will allow him to see.Somehow, Eric is able to ask her out, but she stands him up by accident. This makes him go completely out of his mind, transforming himself into various film icons to destroy his enemies.First, he re-enacts Kiss of Death by pushing his Aunt Stella (who is really his mother) down the steps, showing up to her funeral as Tommy Udo, the role Richard Widmark played in the film. No one gets it. No one has seen the movies that Eric loves. There is no one to discuss them with. They can't even put her grave next to Marilyn Monroe's grave in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetary.Eric then becomes Count Dracula, attending a midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead. Eric then goes to Marilyn's house in a scene that's taken from Psycho. She screams, he drops his pen into the water and the ink becomes the blood. "I only wanted your autograph," he yells as he runs.Eric then goes back to find a hooker who had been rude to him. He chases her, she falls and dies, then he drinks her blood. Obviously, Eric has not seen Martin. Actually, the way this scene is intercut with scenes from old black and white horror films, I am certain that the makers of this film have seen Romero's vampire film.Now that Eric has gone this far, why not dress up as Hopalong Cassidy and kills off Richie(Mickey Rourke in an early role), a co-worker who bullies him. Oh yeah - Tim Thomerson is a criminal psychologist who is working with a policewoman (they're having sex, because 1980 and all) to find what he believes is a serial killer. The big problem is that his captain wants all the glory for himself.Eric talks to his aunt as if she were still alive, then after watching Halloween (producer Irwin Yablans also produced that film), he pleasures himself to a photo of Marilyn Monroe.Eric's dream has been to own his own movie theater and to make his own movie. He tells a sleazeball named Gary Bially his idea, Alabama and the Forty Thieves and you get the feeling not much good can come of it.Eric's boss fires him and won't allow him back into work to get his posters. As his everyday self, even when trying to talk like a movie character, Eric is impotent. But when he's dressed as The Mummy, he can frighten his boss into a heart attack.After seeing Gary Bially on a talk show, talking up the movie Eric created as his own, Eric shows up to the produer's brithday party. Dressed as James Cagney's character from White Heat, he fires a submachine gun at everyone in the room before killing the man who stole from him.The cops are on to Eric, but he's hired Marilyn for a photo shoot and is all set to re-enact The Prince and the Showgirl when Thomerson's character arrives. Eric runs to Mann's Chinese Theater and makes it to the roof before dying just like Cagney in White Heat, yelling, "Made it, ma! Top of the world!"Writer and director Vernon Zimmerman also created Unholy Rollers, but this movie is way beyond that. It shows how only seeing the world as the movies can be a danger to yourself and everyone else. Eric goes from shy and withdraw to dark and mean by the end of the movie, as he slowly becomes a new character. I wonder what he would have thought about the movie that they made his life into?

BA_Harrison I'm absolutely obsessed with movies, especially horror, and I'm guessing that you are too, since you're currently reading an IMDb review of a relatively obscure, thirty-five-year-old horror flick. But as much as we love films, I doubt that either one of us is quite as crazy about them as Dennis Christopher's character, Eric Binford, in Fade to Black (at least I hope not).Eric, a shy, dysfunctional loner, immerses himself in the make-believe world of cinema 24/7, ultimately confusing reality with fantasy, taking on the identities of characters from his favourite films to mete out punishment to those who victimise him. Disguising himself as gangster Cody Jarrett from White Heat, cowboy Hopalong Cassidy, and Universal monsters Dracula and The Mummy, he settles the score with his overbearing Aunt Stella (Eve Brent), a workplace bully (Mickey Rourke), and his tyrant of a boss. Eric also poses as Lawrence Olivier from The Prince and the Showgirl to woo a Marilyn Monroe lookalike he meets in a diner (Linda Kerridge). Meanwhile, the police are trying to piece together the clues before the killer strikes again…Fade to Black is a technically competent effort with some stylish touches—the inter-cutting of old movie clips is a particularly effective trick—but the film suffers from some weak performances (Tim Thomerson, as a counsellor working with the police, is extremely wooden), a script that just gets more and more ludicrous (where the hell does Eric find a working tommy gun?), and a message that doesn't sit very well with this particular movie fan: that consistent exposure to violent movies will cause the viewer to act in a violent manner. We horror fans take enough crap as it is, without our own genre making us out to be loony tunes as well!

loomis78-815-989034 Eric Binford (Christopher) is obsessed with movies. His entire life is surrounded by them including his job working in a film vault. Eric lives at home with his Aunt Stella (Brent) who is in a wheelchair. Eric spends his time watching movies on a projector in his room which is covered with movie posters and stills and movie memorabilia. Movies are Eric's escape from reality which he doesn't do too well with. He is constantly picked on at work and yelled at by his cranky boss. One day he meets a woman (Kerridge) who is a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe and makes a date with her in which she unintentionally stands him up. One night Aunt Stella is on his case and breaks his projector and Eric snaps. Acting out a scene from a classic film he dumps his Aunt wheelchair and all down the stairs. This psychotic break from reality has Eric start acting out scenes from movies and taking his revenge out on any one who has wronged him. Dracula, Hopalong Cassidy, the Mummy and a Gangster are just some of the parts he plays as he goes about killing those who deserve it. The climax takes part on top of the Chinese theater like in the film "White Heat". Binford is someone we all can identify with. He is a great film fan but a complete misfit in everyday life. There is this tragic tone that beats at the heart of this movie all the way to its end. Eric doesn't know where to stop and this becomes a big problem as reality slips away and the movies take over. Binford actually thinks the woman he has met is really Marilyn Monroe. Dennis Christopher is excellent as Eric Binford and his performance is a big part of the success of this film. Director Vernon Zimmerman effectively splices scenes from the real movies Eric is thinking about when he goes out to kill. The second act of the film is very fun with Binford dressing up and carrying out his weird brand of revenge. The best scene and the most suspenseful one is when he attacks his boss at night in the darkened film vault dressed like the Mummy. The plot is clever and very fun with lots of irony and black humor. The only real misstep is the writer character (Thomerson) trying to track Eric. This is a distraction and really was unneeded. Fade to Black is never really that scary but it is so quirky and fun most horror fans will get a real thrill from it.