As is the case with a lot of movies, there were some really good and inventive ideas for the plot and in the hands of a better writer/director and cast, this could have been a great movie. It is still better than a lot of the dross produced in the 80's, just needed more polishing.

SPOILER!!! I've been looking for movies I've seen but don't have a single user comment here. TORMENT is the first one I've found, and since there's so much space to fill for this page, why don't I relay the entire movie, scene by scene? For TORMENT at least, this will spare everybody else the tedium of sitting through this obscure, no-star/no-budget dud. So, let's dust off the ancient VHS copy I taped off HBO fifteen years ago and try to figure out why I felt at one time this movie was a worthy addition to my collection.

TORMENT begins with an older man (mid-50's?) phoning a local San Francisco radio talk show lamenting the differences between the young women of today and the ones of his generation. He looks like the socially maladjusted offspring of Roger Ebert and Stephen King, leading me to dub him "EbertKing" (EK). He accompanies a younger woman (possibly a co-worker, though the movie never makes their relationship, or his profession, clear),who resembles Jennifer Beals with a hard-knock life, to a disco. A man more her age strikes up a conversation with her when EK goes to the bar for drinks. She accepts the guy's invitation to go someplace quieter (uh huh) to continue their chat. EK, feeling rejected, follows them to the parking lot where a brief scuffle ensues.

Back in one of the younger couple's bedrooms, EK slips in while the guy (whose hairy shoulders must have really turned the woman on) is in the bathroom or something. He draws a gun on the woman, who's still lying in bed in post-coital reverie. She's told not to scream, and she obliges. The guy comes back into the room, there's another scuffle, and the woman runs to the bathroom. She hears a gunshot. EK enters, specked in blood. She still doesn't scream. EK takes his time, but eventually gets around to filling her with lead.

EK apparently takes a moment to change his blood-stained shirt before heading off to the liquor store, where he sees on television a detective at the scene of the double murder vowing justice. EK, inferring the detective's statement as a challenge to him, smirks.

The next morning, the detective, named Michael, wakes his fiancée (Jennifer, who's a Meg Tilly-lookalike) with the news of another body found. (Left unexplained is the reason why he shares this with her before even her first cup of coffee, not to mention the identity of the victim or her connection to the plot.) Jennifer for some reason accompanies Michael to the crime scene. She wanders off into a nearby minimalistically decorated art gallery where EK quietly stalks her. She's briefly spooked before returning to her beloved, who's patiently waiting for her to start their scene under the Golden Gate Bridge. She wants him to focus more on their wedding plans than this petty serial killer. He encourages her to check on the details of their upcoming special day herself.

Jennifer takes a taxi, whose driver complains of her smoking and littering, to her future in-law's country home. (She is never again seen holding a cigarette.) After being greeted by the housekeeper, she settles in, naps, then lackadaisically walks around the house. Michael's wheelchair-bound mother appears and introduces herself, which implies this is the first time she's met her son's betrothed.

Later that evening. Michael (who never gets a proper close-up, leaving me to make a half-assed attempt to describe his looks as similar to THE CRUISE's Speed Levitch, or maybe Art Garfunkel) has arrived and the three sit for dinner, where he discusses that day's victim in graphic detail. Jennifer thinks this is not proper dinner conversation. The mother, whom I'll call Biddy, says this sort of chitchat is normal for them, and that she's assisted her son on some of his previous cases.

The phone rings. Michael leaves to answer it. His silhouette is seen through a window that EK is peering through. While Michael's out of the room, Biddy interrogates Jennifer about her previous relationships, of which there are none worth mentioning. Michael returns, speaking of a possible new lead. He goes back to the city alone. This lead, which is never discussed again, serves only as a plot device to get him out of the way until he's needed again for the movie's climax.

The women retire for the evening. EK enters by breaking a window, ascends the stairs, and stands over Jennifer while she sleeps. He caresses her hair, then walks backward out her bedroom.

Biddy screams, and Jennifer rushes to her aid. Biddy claims to have seen a man in her room and demands that Jennifer search the house, starting in the basement.

The basement, of course, has no apparent electricity, forcing Jennifer to use a flashlight. EK lurks in the shadows, unseen. Biddy, through the house-wide intercom system, asks her to return upstairs. She's calling the cops.

The cop arrives and tells Jennifer about Biddy's predilection for crying wolf. He explains that Biddy reported a similar break-in by a scary man not too long ago, but it turned out to be kids. But he's not too good a police officer, since he somehow misses the broken window. This ineptness will cost him dearly in the not-so-far future.

Next morning. The housekeeper finds a discarded cigarette box on the lawn, then an ajar door to inside the house. Instead of calling out to her employer, she silently searches room by room downstairs. EK grabs her, there's a struggle, a bit of whimpering, and then EK plunges a knife into her throat.

Later, Jennifer and Biddy argue whether there was an intruder. (Did that broken window fix itself overnight?) Jennifer then leaves in Biddy's car. (Where? Movie doesn't say, again not really caring about its plot, preferring to merely get characters out of the scene where they're not wanted.) Upstairs, alone in the house, Biddy hears a crashing noise, grabs her cane and gingerly walks down the stairs to investigate. Behind her, on the upstairs landing, her second-floor wheelchair rolls by. She plops down in her main-floor wheelchair and rolls to the kitchen, where she discovers broken plates. (How did EK break them and get upstairs without being spotted?) Biddy sees an open window and reaches up to lock its clasp when EK, now somehow outside, jumps up, punches through a pane, and grabs her wrist. She bites his hand and rolls back. EK enters, points a revolver at her forehead, and pulls the trigger. The chamber is empty. He cackles. Biddy grabs a nearby knife and slashes his hand, causing the gun to fall in her lap. She rolls away and locks herself in the library. EK pounds on the door. Biddy fires the gun in his direction. "Try it again and you're dead!" she warns. EK mulls over this threat. Biddy tries to dial the police (there seems to be a line in every room),but the phone in the other room is off the hook. Fade to black.

Night. Jennifer returns from wherever she was all day. She call for Biddy. Wonders about the shattered flatware. Biddy creeps up behind her, startling her. Explains the events of her day, telling her she believes the phone line has been cut. Jennifer checks and discovers otherwise. Does Jennifer buy Biddy's story? She calls Michael, noting, "Your mother's been acting really weird. She's making things up." Biddy demands to talk to Michael. Jennifer hangs up before she has the chance. Biddy picks up the receiver to call him herself when there's a knock at the door. Despite Biddy's objections, Jennifer answers it. It's EK. She opens the door. "Dad!" she exclaims. "Jenny," he replies. Biddy cowers in disbelieving horror. EK and Jennifer hug.

At this point I'll pause my scene-by-scene description to consider the plot as it now stands. A serial killer decides to, wait for it, *torment* the mother of his daughter's fiancé because the fiancé is the detective who's investigating the murders he's committed. The revelation of EK's identity is stupefying: What are the odds of this situation possibly occurring?

Anyway, back to the movie. EK, whose name is never given, successfully paints Biddy as a complete loony in Jennifer's eyes. Biddy again calls the police, who must respond promptly even if they think she's crazy, right? Meanwhile, Jennifer spots the windows EK broke and looks at her father with perplexion. EK loses it, pulls out a Wanted sketch bearing his likeness and mutters, "I'm the man that Michael wants." "What man?" "Don't be stupid, Jennifer..." EK asks for her help, and Jennifer, stunned and frightened, "promises" she will.

In another room, Biddy busts out her late husband's rifle.

Jennifer offers to fix EK a drink, but sneaks into the kitchen to call the police (whose number at this point should be on speed dial). EK catches her. "Jenny, what are you doing?" She has no immediate reply. He hangs up the phone, becomes upset, and regresses in his mind to long-ago arguments with Jennifer about unwashed dishes and missed curfews. He then drags her outside where, moments later, several spotlights (what?) are suddenly turned on. A figure emerges from the darkness. "Who's that? Who is that?" It's Biddy with the shotgun in her lap, bringing on Showdown #1. "Let her go!" Biddy demands. He does. She shoots him in the shoulder anyway. He collapses, yelling for his daughter.

EK gets up, brushes himself off, and searches for Jennifer. "It's bedtime," he pleads through the intercom. "Daddy'll sing you a song." He makes good on this threat, choosing "On the Good Ship Lollipop" as his preferred lullaby in times of personal strife.

The phone rings again. It's Michael. Everybody picks up the line as EK brings him up to speed on the day's developments. Then EK drops the phone, and while Michael devises a game plan for his fiancée and mother, EK shoots out the main telephone box. And the fuse box.

Darkness, silence. The two women find each other and decide on Jennifer taking the shotgun and getting the car to the front door. While Jennifer is raising the garage door and discovering the car's engine has been disabled, EK captures Biddy. Jennifer goes back inside and finds what's left of the housekeeper in Biddy's wheelchair.

Showdown #2 now commences with EK holding Biddy with the revolver at her temple. Jennifer swings the shotgun in their direction but tosses it aside when she evaluates the situation. EK throws Biddy down and approaches Jennifer. "On your knees!" is probably the last thing a woman wants her father to say to her, but Jennifer does as she's told. EK takes a few moments at this point to wax existential about his life's failures and the nature of his being while loading the revolver as Biddy crawls to a knife on a nearby table. "A man who is evil as I am should be destroyed," EK intones, as Biddy crawls up behind him. In his calf Biddy thrusts the dagger, as he tumbles to the floor, causing the revolver to seemingly fall into some dark, unreachable corner to the room. EK grimaces while removing the knife from his lower leg. The heroines hobble up the stairs as EK lags only a beat behind. They lock themselves in Biddy's bedroom, wondering, as I am, what is taking the police so damn long.

The cop from earlier finally arrives on the scene. "Looks quiet," he radios to his dispatcher. "No lights on. I better go check it out. I'll get back to you in a minute." Moments later he proves this last statement the inevitable, automatic kiss of death it always is when his spine meets the sharp end of an ax being wielded by EK, who in no time is at the bedroom door, using that ax to turn said door into tindersticks.

Biddy wants to use herself as a decoy while Jennifer blows EK away. "He's my father. I won't do it!" she argues, but her hysterics are quickly subdued by Biddy's old-school slap across her face.

EK breaks through the door. Biddy cocks the trigger, but Jennifer tries to grab the gun from her. In the brief scrap the gun discharges, shooting EK in the gut or somewhere. (He's definitely hit, but no new wound can be seen.) He drops the ax, limps to the door but stops to say he's going to give up and turn himself in. Jennifer hugs him.

More cops are heard arriving. EK comes back to his reality, pushes Jennifer away, and accuses both women of stalling for the police. EK attacks Biddy, choking her in her wheelchair. They struggle as Jennifer, announcing Showdown #3, raises the revolver and begs her father to stop or she'll kill him. "You wouldn't do that," he tells her as Michael bursts into the room, gun cocked. Bad editing and lousy camera angles obscure what happens exactly, but I think Michael shoots EK in the back. Good thing EK has enough girth to prevent the bullet from going right through him and into Biddy. He falls backward, landing flat out on his back. Michael and Jennifer embrace.

The movie ends with another detective looking through EK's wallet, tossing its contents on the floor. (Is this standard police procedure?) The camera focuses on an old photo of, presumably, EK and Jennifer, before fading to black one last time.

The End

Whew. I've watched TORMENT one last time, so you don't ever have to see it even once.

A serial killer(William Witt)is murdering young women of San Francisco.Police detective Michael(Warren Lincoln)tries to find him.Unfortunately,Michael's fiancee Jennifer(Taylor Gilbert)soon becomes the madman's next obsession.She finds herself trapped inside a dark house with an elderly near-cripple(Eve Brenner)."Torment" is a boring thriller which offers nothing new.There is no gore and no nudity,so fans of horror will be disappointed.Even the violence is toned down.There is some suspense during the climax,but I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone.4 out of 10.