Wonderfully offbeat film!

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Douglas Hickox directed one of my favorite films, Vincent Price's Theater of Blood. And he also directed this - a TV movie turned video store favorite thanks to its striking box art.Joe Steiner (Richard Widmark, whose portrayal of Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death would inspire Eric Binford in 1980's Fade to Black) is a cop who can't let go. A brutal slayer of an entire family on a child's birthday has scarred him and he promises the dead family that he won't rest until he brings their killer to justice.Allen Devlin (Keith Carradine, Nashville) is a man without an identity. He was in a car crash that destroyed both his face and memory. He wakes up with a scarred visage that upsets nearly everyone that sees it except for his nurse, Chris Graham (Kathleen Quinlan, Airport '77).Mike Patterson (Michael Back, Swan from The Warriors) is another cop who was Chris' boyfriend and lost her to Allen. He can't let go.All three men are trapped by the past: Steiner believes that Allen is the family killer. Mike wants Chris back at nearly any cost. And Allen might be a new person, born on the day of his car crash, but he may also be that killer. Even he isn't so sure.So how is this a giallo? It doesn't have the expected psychosexual and fashionista elements, nor the camerawork showing the killer's POV. However, it does feature plenty of identity confusion and a main character who may or may not be the villain.Come to think of it, this film has a strange narrative in that there is no real hero of the piece, with all three men and Chris serving as characters within the story framework instead of a sole protagonist for us to root for.For a TV movie, this gets pretty dark, with some uncomfortable male on female violence at the end. There's also a great steadicam sequence where Chris opens door after door to try and find either her children or the killer, with the smooth movement of the camera slowly increasing her worry and making the scene quite claustrophobic.Originally airing on July 28, 1995 on HBO, Blackout gained even more notoriety as it inspired Ed Sherman's murder of his wife Ellen in August of that year. Sherman also used an air conditioner to slow the decomposition of his wife's dead body in an attempt to establish his alibi.

This is an early HBO production and has a rather impressive cast-- Richard Widmark and Keith Carradine in the leads.When the story begins, a maniac named Ed Vincent has butchered his family and compulsively arranged the bodies about the home---and even left a birthday hat on his murdered 5 year-old! Considered he not only killed his wife but his three kids, this is a case that really weighs heavily on Detective Joe Steiner (Widmark). However, despite looking for seven years, the case remains unsolved and Steiner retires from the police force. In the meantime, some man is involved in a horrible auto accident where they are completely disfigured. After being in the hospital many months, he's rebuilt by doctors and is ready for discharge. However, during this time, no one has been able to determine who he is...and the guy appears to have no idea who he is as well. He names himself Allen Devlin and eventually he gets married and has some kids...and appears to be leading a rather normal life.Steiner has refused to let the old case die and follows a lead taking him to the guy in the accident. Perhaps this was Ed Vincent...though after all the plastic surgery, it doesn't look like Vincent. So Steiner digs a bit deeper and even approaches Devlin to tell him his suspicions. At this point, Devlin is willing to listen...and wonders if perhaps he IS Ed Vincent. So, Devlin begins to investigate on his own...to see if anything can link him to the monster, Ed Vincent. What's next in this suspense film? Well, a weird masked man begins assaulting women...and it looks a lot like a case that coincided with the disappearance of Ed Vincent.As far as suspense films go, this one provides a lot of suspense. It also keeps you guessing and has a lot of misdirection to keep confusing the audience (in a good way). Excellent acting and a film worth seeing.

As far as psychological thrillers go, (not to mention this movie was before classics like "The Silence of the Lambs) I was thoroughly entertained by the plot and acting. Keith Carradine and Kathleen Quinlan were magnificent. Well, everyone ways good. If you don't have the right people together in a movie, it could be disastrous. It remains as one of the top ten thrillers in my book! You won't be disappointed if you spend a little over an hour watching this masterpiece. It covers a range of things...not just a psychopathic killer. There is a struggle between good and evil within one man. The one side of his personality is a loving, hard-working man. Then he completely reverts to an unrecognizable killer of women and children. I had to watch this movie several times as not to miss any of the hidden clues, etc. I give it an 8 on the rating scale because of its plot, characters, execution of acting and ability to entertain.

I saw this is one of those movies that is only going to be really good the first time it is watched. It has a bit of mystery to it, that while not to hard to figure out is kind of one of those plot devices that makes the movie less watchable when you know it. Still, this made for television movie is rather good for a television movie though I think that is more because it was in fact HBO that made it so it could be a bit more risqué than one made on one of the major networks. The story has a person killing their families at the beginning of the movie, he then proceeds to hitchhike and ends up in a car wreck where both bodies are horribly disfigured. One of them survives though and you are left wondering who did in fact survive, the killer or the guy just giving him a lift. Easy enough question if you ask me as what kind of movie would it be if the killer got killed. If that is not reason enough to easily figure it out, the rape that occurs midway through the movie should remove all doubts. Still it plays out pretty good and is enjoyable to watch as everything comes together.