Sam Panico It's been six years since Nick Cooper has recorded an album. He left the UK behind for Los Angeles and his wife, but now, divorce has landed him back home and back behind the mic. Retiring to the English countryside to record what he hopes will be his return to the limelight, he finds himself haunted by screams and visions of death.Pete Walker's filmography is filled with sex and murder and little, if any, subtext. From House of Whipchord and Frightmare to Schizo and House of the Long Shadows, which united Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Carradine, his films are quickly made and easily digested.The opening of the film has Gail Cooper (Holly Palance, daughter of Jack and the doomed nanny from The Omen) is going through her ex-husband's London apartment one more time. She's not bitter, but almost wistful, remembering their love. Nick isn't home, but she isn't alone. Someone is there, watching her answer a reporter about her upcoming divorce and field questions about her husband's comeback. Moments after she finishes a phone call, someone in an old lady mask kills her in graphic detail, even chopping her hand off. As graphic as this scene is, it gets worse as we return to the scene of the crime multiple times as the camera watches her decompose. And this is one of Walker's restrained movies!Gail's ex-husband Nick (Jack Jones) has no idea that any of this has happened. He's just trying to get through the recording sessions and make his manager Webster (David Doyle, TV's Charlie's Angels) happy. He's moved into the Surrey countryside where Mr. and Mrs. B (Bill Owen and Sheila Keith, who appeared in four of Walker's films) take care of his every need. Yet all is not well. At night, he hears screaming and sees visions of his ex-wife's decaying face. At least he's hooking up with Webster's secretary Linda (Pamela Stephenson, an SNL cast member for season 10 of the show, which was the year Lorne Michaels came back, as well as Superman III).Nick has all sorts of shady people around him, including his right-hand man from the old days, Harry. At one point, Nick ran with a druggy crowd, but now tries to avoid everything, even cigarettes. After discovering that Webster and Linda used to be a couple and the disappearance of Harry, Nick goes crazy. He searches for the voice in the house and only finds Gail's severed head, which sends him into a catatonic state. He's admitted to the hospital for exhaustion and they put him into five days of medical sleep (which sounds wonderful).Nick and Linda finally have sex, but she disappears the next day. This makes Nick even crazier and we start to wonder who is behind all of this. There's a red herring thrown when we discover Webster likes to dress up as an old woman. He also paid off Gail and got her to divorce our hero.When Nick goes back to his old apartment, he learns that it's been cleaned and all the carpeting has been replaced.As Mrs. B tells him not to worry, the old woman attacks. He ducks an axe blow and the old woman is killed, revealing the killer as her husband! It turns out that their beloved daughter was an obsessed fan who committed suicide once Nick married Gail. All of this psychological torture has been their attempt to drive him to suicide.Webster and the police arrive, just as Nick discovers that Linda has been walled inside the house, along with the body of the B's dead daughter, who is clutching a photo of Nick as her body lies in state within a shrine to the singer.As the police arrest Mr. B, Nick looks to the window of the house and sees his ex-wife waving goodbye to him. It seems that all of the psychological turmoil he had been put through wasn't all in his head or in the hands of his would-be murderers.Initially, Walker wanted Bryan Ferry from Roxy Music to play the lead, but Jack Jones chose this as his film debut. A legitimate pop singer who performed nightly concerts while acting daily in this film, he's probably best known for singing the Love Boat theme song. He's had a long career with several Grammy awards and acting roles to his name, including Top Secret and American Hustle.He's really great in this film, a rare example of a man in peril. This British giallo-style shocker is centered by his performance, as his sanity slowly slips. Also, he has the most chest hair I've ever seen on a man, a veritable forest of fluff that freaked out my wife.

Nigel P In a move Director Pete Walker describes as 'making a rod for his own back', 'The Comeback' swaps genders for the usual 'woman in peril' motif of many of his films by making singer/songwriter Nick Cooper (Jack Jones, very effective in a role for which power-crooner Bryan Ferry was also considered) the victim of nefarious goings-on.Cooper secludes himself in a mansion in order to write a follow-up to his last successful album, released six years before, after which his career was put on hold because he wished to concentrate on his then new wife. Sheila Keith is sublime as the sinister house-keeper Mrs B, whose superficial old-school pleasantries seem to mask something infinitely more sinister – the kind of role that Keith excels at. Whilst this is happening, Cooper's ex-wife has been murdered in their marital apartment and is caked in a riot of the brightest blood you ever did see – and that is where she remains for a vast chunk of the running time.Cooper has an unfortunate ability to surround himself with unpleasant types. Or red-herrings. Apart from his selfish ex, there's sleazy right-hand man Harry, his cross-dressing manager Webster (Charlie's Angels' David Doyle) as well as Mr and Mrs B. The exception to this unpleasantness is Webster's beautiful secretary Linda (comedienne, sex therapist and future Mrs Billy Connolly Pamela Stephenson), who instigates a relationship with Cooper.The killings continue at a leisurely pace, by someone in a shawl and a mask, which could mean Webster. Increasingly it seems as if Mrs B might have something to do with it. As in many Pete Walker films, she represents the respectable (but frequently psychotic!) older generation disgusted with the lapsed morals of the young (if 40 – Jack Jones' age at the time - is considered young). Equally, Cooper hears a young girl sobbing at night, and Linda could be responsible for that. He also suffers what he believes are several gruesome hallucinations.The film comes across as a television thriller with horror overtones, and is played very well by its cast (including Bill Owen, and 'House of Whipcord's Penny Irving). The revelation at the end, (SPOILER) is that Mr and Mrs B had a daughter who worshipped Nick Cooper's music, and killed herself when he got married, and it is them and their madness that were responsible for everything that had happened.Cooper is understandably shocked, but relieved he wasn't going mad after all, but as he leaves the mansion at the end, he turns to see the dead daughter at the window.

bensonmum2 It has taken me a while to become a Pete Walker fan, but you can officially include me in the club. The Comeback may be one of his weakest films that I've thus far seen, but it's still a solid little thriller with a few great moments along the way. For example, Walker handles the first murder scene quite well. The murderer comes out of nowhere to commit an incredibly brutal and violent act against his victim. Walker is able to catch a real sense of malice and hatred on the part of the killer – something quite nice when compared with the usual unemotional serial killer. Another real plus for The Comeback is the presence of Walker regular Shelia Keith. She may not have as much to do here as in something like House of Whipcord or Frightmare, but she's incredible in the scenes she does have. The woman could chew scenery with the best of them. She has an air about her that works in Walker's films. The creepy old house, the elevator scenes, and Walker's use of red herrings are also among my favorite bits of the movie.But, as my rating would indicate, it's not all good. My biggest problem is the casting of Jack Jones in the lead. He's dull and unappealing. He can't carry most of the scenes he appears in let alone the entire movie. During the film, I began to dub him "The Anti-Shelia Keith" as he lacks anything approaching the screen presence of scene-stealing Keith. My other big problem is with David Doyle as Jones' manager. As is evident even in his performances on Charlie's Angels, Doyle cannot play "serious" believably at all. He comes across as far too goofy to add the required gravity to a given scene. He's just bad.If you're a fan of Pete Walker and enjoy his work with Shelia Keith, you should be able to find something enjoyable in The Comeback. If you're new to Walker, I would suggest starting with another of his films.

christopher-underwood True, this is rather more pedestrian than Walker's infamous horror trilogy and this clearly would have benefited from a McGillivray script. This is much more one dimensional and at times rather plodding with the fabulous Sheila Keith unfortunately sidelined. However, this is nothing like as bad as has been made out, has vigorous kills a most eerie atmosphere and decent performances from both Jack Jones and Pamela Stevenson, not to mention a restrained but most effective one from the aforementioned Ms Keith. Keeps you guessing but by the end there is nobody else it could be. Despite comments I have seen elsewhere, both leads do disrobe even if the flesh is carefully shot. Enjoyable.