As a Holiday interrupted Tubi Thursday, I might as well cover this one late. This is The Wind, a 1986 Film by Nico Mastorakis. The man behind Island of Death- lovely. This is a Who's Who of People Often in Trashy Films. I mean no disrespect to said people, but the Resumes speak for themselves. Meg Foster, she with the creepy eyes, is in arguably more bad Films than good ones. Being in They Live does help a bit. Up next is Wings Hauser, a man who was in lots of Rifftrax material early on. One of them- Nightmare at Noon- was also by Nico here. Next on the Roster we have Steve Railsback, who got big acclaim early in his career for playing Charles Manson. He's since gone on to appear in stuff like, well, this, Barb Wire and The Asylum's King of the Lost World. We also have David McCallum, who most people know from NCIS, but he had a long career before that. Rounding out the group, we have Robert Morely (though not for long) who might be the only Oscar Nominee in this.
What is the Plot? Sadly, it's not about killer wind, like I was hoping. Instead, Foster goes to Greece- big shock with the Setting- to finish a Mystery Novel...as you do. She runs afoul of Wings after he commits a murder, leading to a long cat-and-mouse game. Who will win? To find out, read on...
Foster leaves her boyfriend- McCallum- behind to go to Greece to finish her latest Mystery Novel.
Sadly, the Film does NOT wrap around to reveal that the Plot of this Film became the story of her Book.
That would be too clever, no?
The Village is mostly-empty, save for the guy who owns the House- Morely- and the Caretaker- Hauser.
The latter is basically a Drifter on his last chance, so he's someone you can trust.
Also it's windy.
Now there's one less as Hauser kills Morsely after he fires him.
Sadly, the Wind is still here to stay.
Foster sees him burying a body and makes the connection, so, naturally, she decides to investigate the situation IMMEDIATELY while he's still out and about.
What could go wrong?
Oh right- he tries to kill her.
Now she's trapped upstairs and can't seem to get help.
Oh and Railsback shows up abruptly about 55 minutes into this, gets an exposition dump about his character, hangs around with Foster for 10 minutes and then dies.
Can Foster escape Hauser?
To find out, stream the Film and see if the Title becomes really important at any point.
A decent Film, if a bit shallow. If you break the Film down, it's at least a full hour of just Meg Foster hiding from/fending off Wings Hauser. They really have to stretch certain Scenes out to make this work. Between those moments, we get the drama of people trying to call different Cities in Greece via Collect Calls from L.A. It's not badly-executed per se, but is a bit much for what little content they have here.
For one thing, you could have built up the tension between Foster and Hauser before he knew that she saw his crime. Instead, he's crazy in like his 2nd Scene, kills the Owner and then goes right after her. He has one last interaction where he's clearly gone off the deep end, but I guess he's trying to gauge how guilty she knows he is. It helps, though it is only a few minutes tops.
Foster- in spite of my clear phobia regarding her eyes- does do a good job here. Hauser, in turn, plays crazy pretty well. It's basically what if someone watched Jack Nicholson in The Shining and tried to do that. On the flip side, McCallum has nearly nothing to do after Act 1 and Railsback is kind of wasted in his small role.
The Wind is a decent Thriller. It's just a pretty bare-bones one. You could do worse on a dark night though.
Next time, I mine a multi-Film DVD for more content. What's the worst I could find? Stay tuned...
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