Popular reviews

• 

  Review by belial_carboni ★★★ 3

  A tense little thriller that pushes exposure therapy to a whole new level. Afraid of snakes? Bam! Snake in the face! Scared of heights? Bam! Now you're falling! Big crowds? Bam! Full Subway train comin atcha! A killer also on the loose? Killing off patients one by one? Oh dang! Sound exciting? Well it might not be as exciting as this riveting review but it's an engaging tale of mystery nonetheless.

  Dr Peter Ross has been carrying out an edgy new form of therapy. As I outlined above. Using their own fears against them his patients are killed off one by one. Is Dr Ross a suspect? Or is he the target? Only time will tell!

  I love Dr Ross's…

• 

  Review by The Horror of Marna Larsen ★★ 23

  My menonite sort of therapist at the terrible Gateway for Human Services/Akeela: well, normally I'd suggest exposure therapy, but you probably can't afford to fly somewhere every five seconds.

  Me, seething with class resentments (is wellness a class? I don't know, but it certaintly makes everything look like a scented candle commercial I will never, ever, ever be able to reach): nothing but a sort of loudly glaring face.

  Anyway, obviously someone was phobic about rape and I'm like...is something a phobia when it has a one in six chance of happening to you? This was otherwise incredibly boring, I bought this movie on vhs to blog about and it is not going to happen! It's too boring! I have…

• 

  Review by Michael501 📺 ★ 8

  1980 In Review -September

  A psychiatrist involved in a radical new therapy comes under suspicion when his patients are being murdered one by one.

  I was shocked when I discovered who directed this piece of shit, John Huston, the same person who directed The Treasure of Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, Moby Dick, the list goes on and on. Why would he choose to direct this. There is very little about this that is good. Huston’s directions are not good here, the same can be said for Paul Michael Glaser, he doesn’t seem interested in this film at all and literally sleepwalks through this role. I also thought the look of the film was shoddy, the camera angles are all…

• 

  Review by Callisto ½ 2

  Phobia starts off interesting with such effective horrifying scenes. They're filmed in such a way that I can't recall something similar. This doesn't happen for long at all and the best scenes are over before know it. Once the film gets going immediately after, it becomes a bore. The film is about curing people with phobias through exposure therapy, but one by one the psychiatrist's patients die . . . by their phobias. I'd like to see a new and updated version to see how someone would die by trypophobia. Or the very weird and abstract phobias, like philophobia, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, omphalophobia, and lachanophobia. That would make for quite the refreshing movie. Could be a blockbuster. Just don't turn it into a superhero named Phobiaman and keep it as a horror.

• 

  Review by louferrigno ★ 2

  Great Directors' Misfires (16/27)

  Larger-than-life describes not only the manly, energetic stories found in nearly all John Huston movies, but also describes the legend himself in oh so many ways. Cantankerous in his independence, intimidating to Hollywood's studios for unabashedly tackling tough issues, and committed to extract every genuine emotion out of his actors, Huston's best films reflected that reckless ambition by constructing a method of storytelling that managed to be very virile and innovative, frequently focusing on the extremes of humanity that will inevitably lead to their doom. Unlike nearly all of his peers, Huston's films weren't shaped come post-production, but rather during filming as he devised precisely what shots would be used with rarely any protective shots, a…

• 

  Review by hiruko ★★★

  Canadian Giallo? Not quite, but it came close. It should have been. It could have been. Instead it comes off as a bland thriller.  Paul Michael Glaser (the one who wasn’t Hutch) plays a shrink who’s patients all die extraordinary deaths. Someone is killing them off one by one. Who could it be? Everyone is suspect. And everything looks fine on paper. Things get weird when you’re  reminded that John Huston is at the helm of this project. You also knew things would be rough when you noticed three screenwriters were credited, and their work was based on a story by 2 other writers. Never a good sign. I suspect massive time sensitive rewrites were going on. Huston’s oxymoronic work here…

• 

  Review by Oney M. ★½

  My interest piqued when I initially saw this on a few "80's slasher" lists. I feel cheated because it's not really a slasher, but more of a bland thriller with a lot of melodramatic moments. There's a whodunit element but anyone can figure out the killer within 10-15 minutes. I even semi-rolled my eyes at the big *reveal* in the finale because I think the filmmakers thought it was a serve LOL.

  The premise itself is fairly decent and I did enjoy how the characters' deaths were linked to their individual phobias. The biggest problem is that it's devoid of any energy or personality in the directing. The movie is incredibly dull and moves at a glacial pace.

  A forgotten 80's film that has slipped into obscurity for a reason. 3/10.

• 

  Review by Dr. Ethan Lyon ★★★½

  Hooptober 6.0, pt.5- I've Gotta Feeling You're Foolin'

  4/6- 6 Decades
  3/6- Countries Represented (USA, UK, Italy)
  1/1- Lowest Rated 80s film on IMDb (3.9)

  I know the idea is to watch a bad film as part of Hooptober, but is it wrong that I actually quite enjoyed this? It may be to do with my long-running fascination with how mental health and psychiatry is represented in cinema, but I found the film to be far better than a 3.9 would ever suggest. Part of the reason for the low rating may come from the fact that John Huston is directing this. Yes, the man who made The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen made a cheapie horror/thriller in the…

• 

  Review by badpizza

  Looks like he has a fear of haircuts.

• 

  Review by Paul D ★★ 4

  Hoop-Tober IV: The Final Chapter #44

  Well respected psychiatrist Paul-Michael Glaser (Starsky or Hutch) has developed a radical, so-called Implosion Therapy designed to treat phobias which involves subjecting his patients to the very thing which they fear, mostly by putting them inside a room and projecting a very carefully prepared film onto a huge screen and making them really scared until they aren't scared any more. Pretty sophisticated stuff I think you'll agree.

  His group, which seems to includes some criminals but who all mix together, seem to suffer from such irrational fears as snakes, heights, open spaces and being raped.

  And guess what? They're being killed off one by one, sometimes in manners related to their fears, sometimes very…

• 

  Review by teamgal ★½

  Where to begin? A cast of professionals giving amateur performances, dull locations, drab costuming, lackluster cinematography, and a muddled, confused screenplay it took five people to write. This could aspire to be B-level moviemaking but it even misses that mark. By miles. That John Huston manages to wrestle two great sequences out of this mess — a decent car chase and an inventive elevator mishap — proves he at least showed up for a work a few times.

  John Huston, ranked

• 

  Review by cryptofgloom ★★★

  "You'll face your phobia head on"

  I would hate my psychiatrist if they did this shit to me. But hey, nobody ever said it would be easy to face your fears head on.

  Not sure why I found this on a slasher list because it doesn't have many horror elements, if any at all, but does have the trappings of a pretty okay early 80s thriller. Not like palms sweaty, edge of your seat, super moody, blood rushing type of thriller but an interesting enough one with a decent plot, New York setting and some cool ideas that keeps you entertained in the middle of the night.

  It does hit a rut for a bit where it steers into standard…