ridiculous rating

Absolutely brilliant

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

And Lord knows they had enough chances at that.The angle here, or the promotion, was that 'your favorite daytime stars were going to be appearing in primetime'.This was after all the Luke and Laura brouhaha from General Hospital, and suddenly soap operas were popular amongst teen agers out of school during the summer.Before cable is all I can add.Plot generally was the cast of a popular soap are being killed off, one by one.Who could be doing it? Was it the sexy producer of the show (Pleshette) and we get a detective as well (Barry Newman).Now it didn't help (or maybe it didn't hurt) that I hadnt a clue who Pleshette or Newman were at that time either, as actors go.But the clincher was our soap cast.Our soap cast.John Gabriel from Ryan's Hope.Stuart Damon and Robin Mattson from General Hospital.Peter Bergman from All My Children.Robert S. Woods from One Life To Live.Let's see, the movie began with Bergman being thrown out a window.We only briefly glimpse Woods on a TV set.Was Gabriel stabbed? Or poisoned? Doesn't matter.There was quite a bit of dialogue from Mattson, giving the impression she was a nutcase (she played the villianess Heather Webber on GH back then) and cant recall what happened to her either. Stabbed or fell thru a glass coffee table, it seems.Damon was playing up the ultimate sinister role. Was he the killer or was he just afraid. I think he was shot.In the end, the killer was the last person you would expect it to be. Basically what soaps do; a major league cop out.Would I want to see this again? Oh no.ONce was enough.

Man, just to see this again..Suzanne Pleshette was great as the producer of a typically trashy soap that gets beset by a series of murders that begin to decimate the cast of her bread and butter show. The shadowy freak that stalks the cast has an unnerving sort of broken hum after each dispatch and there is a nice scare or two within the proceedings. If you pay VERY close attention you can spot the killer early on but since I suck at guessing who the maniac is, I lucked out by looking at the T.v. guide ad: shadowy lunatic standing in a doorway over a terrified female victim (The killer's hair only matched ONE of the actors in the film so I was able to pay attention to that one's motives). Anyhow, this is good stuff and is definitely T.v.'s entry into the stalk & slash subgenre of terror flicks. Very hard to come by and almost no-one knows of it or its whereabouts. It would be very cool if someone out there comes across this and starts to circulate it. also..VERY VERY HUGE MOMENTOUS SPOILER ALERT..STOP READING RIGHT HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN OR KNOW NOTHING OF THIS FILM: the standout ending will either alienate or please those who have seen 'April Fool's Day' in the fact that when all is said and done it turns out to be a staged ploy (in this film though, it was the wrapping up of principal filming of the proceeding events)..At the time of its broadcast, I thought 'Fantasies' was a great stalker flick with a fantastic ending..