GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

lazarillo This movie is indeed an incoherent mess, but it's so weird in its very concept that I can't believe it is merely an exercise in incompetence (despite the bad reviews and the "Alan Smithee" directorial credit). But neither is it one of those annoying, would-be "cult" films that tries very self-consciously to be "weird". It is UNIQUELY weird, which is the mark of a TRUE cult film, even if it obviously doesn't have any kind of a cult following.It starts with a strange detective following an escaped mental patient who is driving a white van (shades of producer Mustapha Akkad's most famous movie). The mental patient stops to bloodlessly stab his ex-wife to death while she's sitting on someone's porch with their infant son. The dying women gives the infant to a ditsy teenager, who has just been performing a mime routine at the birthday party of a cranky old man next door. The ditsy teen gets a ride home with her very cute friend (Michelle Little), who doesn't seem to notice she is now carrying an infant. The friend is pretty weird herself--she constantly eavesdrops on people with a directional microphone and she has a pet hobo named "Norman" sleeping in the back of her flat-bed pickup truck (a "Crazy Ralph" type given to strange, philosophical soliloquies). Rounding out the cast is the cute girl's would-be boyfriend, who rides around on a motorcycle with a female mannequin in the sidecar, and a couple--a guy named "Cowboy" and a blonde girl--who are frequently playing cards and having sex, sometimes doing both at the same time. Eventually this kinda turns into a slasher movie as the killer comes after his newborn son, but a very bizarre one featuring astral projection and the Egyptian god of nature. . .The most recognizable actor here might be the busty Debbisue Vorhees who played "Jason's" most gratuitously naked murder victim in "Friday the 13th Part V". She has a similarly perfunctory role in this as a casual friend of lead, who, while waiting for her friend to come home, strips down to her panties for a quick dip in the pool for no apparent reason, and is subsequently murdered. (It's not a much of a part, but I doubt anyone will complain). It's also nice to see Brioni Ferrell, who was memorable in Roger Corman's "Student Nurses", but never did much after that. She plays the mother of the ditsy girl, and is usually clad in a skimpy bikini for reasons that have nothing really to do with the plot. There are more boobs than blood in this one (but not really enough of either), and the action comes to a dead halt several times for a synchronized New Wave dance routine or some other weirdness. It probably won't appeal much to hardcore slasher fans, but I actually kinda liked it for some reason. . .

Vomitron_G I recently found a copy of this film on video at a video-store which was selling ex-rentals. I instantly remembered the cover (which was kind of cool and not shown here on IMDb - It was drawn by E. Sciotti who did the artwork for DEMONS, PHENOMENA, GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE, NEON MANIACS,...) and the title from the days when I was an 11-year old kid. It also read on the cover "From the man who brought you HALLOWEEN - Moustapha Akkad presents". So, I guess any fan of horror-movies would give this one a chance, no? Well, was I in for a surprise...The storyline: A dying woman, sitting on a porch in broad daylight, hands over her baby to an unsuspecting teenager asking her to protect it from her husband... who's lying in a coma in a mental institution. The teenager and her friends decide to go to this villa (to party, what else for) while being tracked down by the husband's döppelganger (emerging out of his sleep using some astral-projection or something)Does this sound cool to you? Well, it's not. While this could be the premise of a more or less original supernatural slasher movie, instead you get bored to death, real slowly and painful.The characters are all stupid, retarded or just plain weird. Even the baby looks like a mongloïd (so it's very funny when someone says "Oh, he's so beautiful") There's also an old bum with mental issues who lives in the trunk of a car. The detective, Kowalski, who tries to track down the husband/forestking/demi-god/döppelganger/killer(dig this?) has almost nothing to do. He always arrives too late at the scene of the crime, always sets fire to his car with his cigarettes (which is actually kinda funny and a good excuse to insert a car-explosion in the plot) and doesn't even save the day at the end of the movie. But he IS the best actor of the whole cast.Then there's the villain. Who does even less than nothing. He's supposed to be an Egyptian Demi-God or something, but he has absolutely no special power whatsoever (except the fact that he can't be killed by bullets or fire). Most of the time he's standing in the dark, waiting, walking around or just sitting and contemplating. But he does carry a knife and crashes through a window (most exciting scene of the movie). But, face it, nobody crashes through a window like Jason Voorhees does!I think there's a bodycount of five in the movie, but all of the killings are offscreen (yes, total rip-off). Or maybe at one point you see something rolling over the ground for approximately 1/3 second. I think that was supposed to be a decapitated head.Needless to say the production-values were rather low on this movie. But they did manage to hire some dancers to do this hilarious 80's dance-scene with awesome choreography ("Why?", I kept asking myself, "Why?") How they eventually kill the villain, I will not give away in this review, but I can say that the dance-scene seemed to have a purpose after all... (curious? Rent the movie)Oh, did I tell you about the completely unnecessary subplot about a traumatic experience of teenager Heather, involving a baby and a bathtub, which she expresses through her paintings (watch the almost incomprehensable flashbacks)One more thing I liked about this movie was the mesmerizing look of the plastic tree with the white light coming out of it, symbolizing everything our godly villain stands for (I guess).I almost forgot: this movie has some scenes in it which contain gratuitous nudity (but what do you want, it has teenagers in it)OK, enough said! Except for the fact that Moustapha Akkad wasn't even on the credits of this film (only a production-assistant named Malek Akkad was mentioned in the end-credits). He must have had the common sense to realize he didn't want to have his name linked with this picture. A shame the promotional staff used it anyway.The only good thing about this really bad movie I now proudly own is the nice cover by E.Sciotti. So for all you good horror-movie lovers out there: A year before this movie got released, another movie about a supernatural killer which emerges out of dreams was made: A NIGHTMARE ON ELMSTREET. So go see that one, or any episode of the HALLOWEEN movies or , hell, you can even check out THE GUARDIAN if you like your horror mixed up with mystical nanny-villains, trees and babies. But avoid APPOINMENT WITH FEAR at all costs, unless you have the right sense of humour or like to be amazed by a movie that set new standards for unlogical film-making in 1985.

alansmithee04 A thoroughly disagreeable entry into the slasher genre, this film began life as "Deadly Presence". After the producers saw how gawd-awful the film really was, they fired Thomas and shot some more footage. Gowan's detective character and a bunch of others were added in a sort of parallel story and the whole thing renamed "Appointment With Fear." Aside from a couple of performances, this cinematic disaster's only redeeming value is its score. Written by ace composer Andrea Saparoff, the music is the only thing lending a little eeriness to what is otherwise an hour and a half of scare-free tedium.Recommended audience: Weevils, chunks of granite, D-cell batteries and very very minor Egyptian deities only.

Ed Cowell I fast-forwarded through most of this movie searching for something, anything interesting,but never found anything. A bunch of bland morons stalk around in the dark and some guy lies around in a coma,and he's possessed by a tree spirit or something. Moustapha Akkad went from HALLOWEEN to THIS. A complete waste of valuable celluloid.