Purely Joyful Movie!

Excellent, smart action film.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

I remember seeing the advertisement for "The Fan" (1981) as a child and feeling shocked by the idea that someone could like a star so much that he'd kill her. I also remember the critics panning the film, wondering why Lauren Bacall would involve herself in such a tawdry mess.While the film is awful, it does make me wonder what the producers were thinking. I mean, we know from the first frame of the film who the fan is and that his fixation on Bacall will soon turn deadly. Without the element of mystery, the film is rather like waiting for a bus. Imagine if "Psycho" began by showing us that Norman often dressed and talked like his mother, and that he killed any woman who aroused him. Without the element of mystery, "Psycho" would have fallen into the abyss of forgettable films. Still, all things considered, "The Fan" is well acted and the production values are good.

THE FAN was made and released during the massive glut of slashers in the early 1980s. The critics trashed it because they thought it was repellent and a vehicle that was beneath its main star, Lauren Bacall. Of course, the film flopped because it didn't please anyone: fans of slashers (musical numbers in a slasher?) or fans of respectable Hitchcock-like thrillers, or fans of musicals.Because of this, THE FAN is one of those movies that has fallen into the crack of cinematic oblivion. Personally speaking, the film itself is not great. There are several major problems with it but I, for one, like it for what it is: it's pure camp! The screenplay was based on a novel many say is better than the film. I haven't read the book yet but the film itself is filled with many memorable moments that stick with you long after you watched it. Most of those scenes are unintentionally hilarious ones, like all of the musical numbers, which are priceless. Seeing Lauren being wooed by a throng of dancing studs in bed is too much for words. But the (infamous) musical numbers are not the only campy thing about it. The acting from everyone is set on melodramatic. Well, except for James Garner, who's as dull as can be. Garner's presence is one of the film's many weaknesses. Every time he's on screen the film slows to a crawl. He literally sucks the life out of the film. The other weakness is Michael Biehn's voice-overs. Though a very good actor, I thought his voice-overs weren't menacing enough. A little too flat.But the (crazy) idea that a closet-case like Michael Biehn is infatuated by Lauren Bacall is one of the movie's many beautifully illogical aspects which makes this forgotten film much more fun than its reputation. The script is totally illogical. Bacall pines for ex husband Garner but halfway into the movie, Bacall starts a relationship with a cop, played by Hector Elizondo, which oddly enough doesn't go anywhere and by the end of the film she still pines for Garner. The screenplay is very muddled over this plot point. The Fan (Biehn) is very protective of Sally Ross. He even kills one of Bacall's "dates" (David, during the swimming pool scene) and yet he never ever goes after Garner's character or even the flirtatious cop. Had the film actually dealt with this in a logical fashion, the killer should have went after Garner, and quite frankly, should have killed him. This would have added much needed gravitas to the lightweight TV movie-like feel of the film. The subtext of the illogical story is clearly about repressed homosexuality (a crazed fan of a Broadway star) but the handling of it (intentional or not) is not too subtle and almost veers the film in the homophobic category.The only people The Fan kills are blue-collar or working class folks, which makes it unique: is this the first working-class slasher? The Fan kills a stagehand known as Pops; not one but TWO maids; David, who's one of the dancers; a gay man he meets at a bar, etc. Working for Sally comes at a price (if you're a maid, just don't work for her!). When the end credits roll, all of the main characters are still alive, including Bacall's personal secretary, Belle, played by Maureen Stapleton. Belle handles Sally's fan mail and because of this, she directly experiences The Fan's wrath, who slices her face with his favorite weapon, a razor. Belle survives the attack (because she's an important character) but her face was cut up severely. Without knowing about it, The Fan basically gave her a spontaneous face-lift of sorts but when the bandages come off, Maureen looks exactly the same as before. She should have asked for a refund. This detail makes me giggle nonstop.Because The Fan only kills secondary characters and few of the main ones are in any direct threat, there's very little tension or suspense going on, which is not good for a horror/slasher flick. The only real tension occurs at the very end and even then, it's never overwhelming. This moment happens right after a successful opening night of the musical, after we see every cast and character of the film personally congratulate Sally in her dressing room, hugging and kissing her for a job well done. Again, this scene is hilarious and reminds me of musicals of the past. One has to be continuously reminded that this is supposed to be a slasher, not a Fred & Ginger musical.Even with all its weaknesses, THE FAN is excellent camp. The dialogue is often quotable, there's an ultra flowery & shrieking score by Pino Donaggio (which echoes those he made for Brian De Palma) and Bacall is fun to watch. Like I said before, it's not a great film but if you enjoy trashy melodramatic films, THE FAN won't disappoint.

I think to see the actress Lauren Bacall in a sense playing herself as a well known actress in this 1981 thriller was exciting to watch. Ms. Bacall was 57 years old then. I was not comfortable watching actor Michael Biehn portray a psychotic killer. I rented the video in the year 2006 and I was unaware actor Michael Biehn had made this movie "The Fan." I had seen "The Terminator" on video in 1987 and I was use to thinking of actor Michael Biehn as a hero and not a villain. I saw the movie "Aliens" on video in 1992 and, again, I was use to thinking of actor Michael Biehn portraying a hero character. I think actor Michael Biehn did a good job portraying a psychotic killer. Maybe it helped actor Michael Biehn "acting range." It must be a difficult experience for a popular man or woman in the "public eye" to have an ordinary life. The public knows who you are because of the attention he or she receives in the media; therefore, an obsessed fan may "cross the line." I think the music score and the performances by the character actors and actresses were good.

I remember this movie being out when it was originally released, I remember thinking it looked pretty cool, and I remember what terrible reviews it got. Then I read the hilarious review which said that the dangerous killer is akin to Waylon Flowers, and what can I say, obviously after that I had to see it, and see it NOW. Then add the boozy, washed-up, chain-smoking actress aspects and the backstage Broadway milieu, and you've got a WINNER. Or at least you'd think you would, if the movie didn't just get so darned boring.The movie begins with an excellent opening credits sequence which tracks in extreme close-up around the fan's desk as we hear another wonderful Bernard Herrmann-esquire score from Pino Donaggio, underlaying a typical letter from the fan in question, Douglas Breen. Douglas is a show queen who works in a record store and idolizes Sally Ross, a former screen actress, now on Broadway. He's blond and pent-up, but not as pent-up as it he would have been if the script were well-written, or if this was a decent performance.Lauren Bacall plays Lauren Bacall, only she's called Sally Ross, which leads to snickers every time she's called "Miss Ross," because, well, we all know who MISS ROSS is. Poor Lauren has fallen prey to the ravages of time, and her face seems to hang about three inches below her skull. Nevertheless, it was nice to see an older woman who hadn't been facelifted to death. Anyway, she drinks like a fish, smokes like a fiend, and is every bit the haughty, imperious, not-qualified-to-be-anything-but-haughty-and-imperious actress you'd hope she would be. Her secretary, played by Maureen Stapleton, is the one who actually receives and answers the mail, and so Mr. Breen's letters all end up with her at first. The letters start in a fairly off-the-wall way, so there's not far for them to go, and it's not long before Douglas is imagining a tepid affair between Sally and he, insinuating that Maureen is a lesbian, and Maureen is telling him to cut it out, which leads to a massive bitch-off between Lauren and Maureen that may be the highlight of the entire film… if you like massive bitch-offs. Afterward, Maureen retreats into her familiar attitude of passive-aggression, and Lauren goes on with the haughty and imperious routine.As a special treat, there are several musical sequences, as Lauren is practicing to star in the most boringly-named musical ever ("Never Say Never"). This brings us into the backstage world of Broadway, which is always fun, though the movie never lets us get through one or two lines of the songs before they cut away (probably because they're saving the full version for the performance at the end, though even then we don't get to see it all). Please don't miss the guy slapping the other guy on the ass....spoilers, including reveal of ending, from here on out Blah, blah, blah. I forget who gets killed first. I think Maureen gets attacked, then some nameless assistant gets disemboweled, then Douglas comes and trashes Lauren's apartment—-though you'll note that it's all perfectly back to normal by the next scene. The rich have different housekeepers than you or me. You'll notice how long and dull the stalkings are. The word on the street is that since Friday the 13th came out while this was filming, that the producers went back and added a bunch of "gore," if the equivalent of one 6-ounce tube of fake blood is what you call "gore." Apparently Lauren saw it and was appalled and refused to promote the movie. Anyway, for my money, not much blood, which by this time could have livened things up.Also better-sounding than it actually is would be the much-vaunted trip to the GAY BAR (the "Haymarket") in which almost no one seems to be speaking to each other--I mean, even less than in real bars. Douglas picks up a young man without a word, and they go up to the roof, where the man takes care of Doug until Doug slits his throat and sets him on fire. Sounds exciting? It isn't.So Lauren's big musical opens and we get to see a few almost-full numbers which are always a delight, especially these tacky 80s ones. I was curious that Douglas only shows up for the last song, which, if he's such a big fan… and no one knows what he looks like… but whatever. So the theater backstage EMPTIES out in a flash (as IF they're going to leave the big star of a Broadway musical alone in a theater but for two people), and Douglas breaks in and kills the other two (in one of those one-knife-jab-to-the-gut-and-they're-DEAD movie killings), then comes after Lauren. She chooses to arm herself with a RIDING CROP (akin to the scene in Scary Movie where Carmen Electra eyes a table of butcher knives and chooses the banana), and eventually the killer falls. Now, please note that Lauren stabbed the guy at the very front of the seats, but when we see him later, he is propped up for "chilling" effect in seats a little further back, as though he's watching a show (so eerie). Which would mean that Lauren would have had to drag his dead body back to that seat and arrange him just so. But you know drama queens. --- Check out other reviews on my website of bad and cheesy movies, Cinema de Merde, cinemademerde.com