Don’t Live Alone

As should be evident at this point, from the scores of slasher films I’ve reviewed on this site over the years, I really like slasher films. They are right at the top of my horror film watching queue, right next to vampire films (which I also really love), and horror is the main genre I watch when I’m relaxing. I have a not insubstantial home video collection and easily one-fifth of the collection is just horror films (not counting sci-fi horror like the Aliens v PredatorOriginally two separate franchises, the Alien and Predator series came together first in a series of comics and video games before, finally, Fox Studios merged them together is the Alien v Predator film franchise. franchise or classic sci-fi monster horror, which is counted in other sections of my collection because I have an anal retentive need to organize all my films as if I were running a Blockbuster Video). Slasher movies take up a huge part of my shelf space, and I’m always on the lookout for some new slasher to enjoy. One that has a bold, interesting name will certainly garner some of my attention.

I have the Shudder app (because I like horror), and recently that app suggested the “slashic” film Lady, Stay Dead (the comma in the title may or may not be required as, while researching the film, it does seem like it’s optional punctuation). An Australian slasher exploitation film? That did sound interesting. But I was also drawn to the fact that this was a slasher film made in the early 1980s that wasn’t built around a holiday or other celebration (see: New Year’s Evil, Final Exam, Sweet Sixteen, et al). This sounded like an interesting change of pace, one that I was clearly on board for.

The problem is that Shudder sold this film as something it’s not. It’s less a horror film (let alone a slasher) and more of a thriller. The film isn’t really interested in developing horror from kills or jump scares, or the stalking of a nameless monster. This is more a character study of a clearly psychotic, burgeoning rapist and serial killer, who just so happens to go over the edge at the start of the movie. It’s interesting, at least for the first two acts, but not really horror… nor, if I’m being honest, something I’d suggest to most film watchers. It’s a little too rapey early on, and then way too slow after, to really get people to want to watch the whole film.

Gordon (Chard Hayward) is a local handyman in a quiet, seaside town. He works for former teen pop star, and now general celebrity, Marie Coleby (Deborah Coulls), who became famous on a talent scout show and eventually released one really popular album. Gordon is obsessed with Marie, feeling like he’s in love with her and, deep down, that she just might be in love with him. On the day where she’s supposed to pick up her sister, Jenny Nolan (Louise Howitt), from the airport before leaving Jenny in charge of her house while she, Marie, heads off to handle some job only celebrities can handle, Gordon makes his movie. He professes his love for Marie, demanding she love him back. It doesn’t go well and, soon enough, Marie ends up dead.

Fearful of what he’s done, and what might happen, Gordon tries to clean everything up. He tries to hide Marie’s body, but when he’s discovered by Marie’s neighbor, Billy Shepherd (Les Foxcroft), Gordon has to kill him, too, as well as his dog. But this unexpected crime of passion leaves a lot of evidence behind, and when Jenny shows up, having caught a ride herself, she starts to question where Marie is and just what Gordon has been up to. She’ll have to work quickly to put everything together before Gordon finds a new woman, Jenny, to obsess over… and if he does that, things will quickly turn violent.

I think selling this film as a straight up horror movie does it a bit of disservice. The film isn’t really interested in scares (at least not until the last act, which we’ll get to in a bit) so much as seeing what Gordon is going to do and just how deep his depravity goes. He’s certainly not a slasher killer in the traditional sense as, one could argue, Gordon is the main character of the film. He’s the one the film follows for much of its middle act (after Marie is killed and before Jenny shows up) and he’s who gets most of the drama and development.

The film honestly reminded me more of Maniac, the 1980 film (and eventual 2012 remake) focused on a psychotic man killing women because of abuse he suffered previously in his life. While Lady, Stay Dead doesn’t explore that aspect of Gordon’s character, not letting us know just why he stalks women and wants to sexually abuse them, it’s pretty clear there’s a lot of issues at play in Gordon’s head. He’s almost childlike at times, both in demeanor as well as having little in the way of impulse control. Something broke in this man, and the society around him hasn’t done much to help him heal.

Not that you really want Gordon to heal. It’s pretty clear early on that this is a disturbed man who gets off on raping women. We get little scenes in his head, early on, of a couple of the women he’s stalked, who he’s stripped and tied up and done things to. Then, when it comes, we have a full rape scene. This is not a good dude, and once that line is crossed (before he then kills Marie because she disrespects him, which is also not going to endear him to any of us in the audience) it’s hard for the film to get us invested in him in any way.

I also think the messaging of the film can be interpreted pretty poorly. Marie is stuck up, spoiled, having become famous when she was still just a teen, and has spent years with a cadre of brown-nosers telling her how special she is. She’s abusive to Gordon (not that he doesn’t deserve it, creepy as he is) and from a certain perspective you could see the film saying, “well, she was a shitty person so she had it coming.” This is certainly reinforced by the fact that her sister is a good, married woman who is not abusive, and unlike Marie, Jenny gets to be the final girl of the film. Be bad and you die, the film seems to be saying, and that feels shitty to put on a character that was just raped and murdered by a clearly disturbed individual.

Sections of the film do have some momentum to them, and there’s enough energy to the movie, just seeing if the film is going to let Gordon get away with his murders or not, that I was at least able to sit through the film. With that said, the last act of the film is really bad. This is where the movie changes from character study thriller into more of an overt horror film, but it loses all momentum in the process. It’s a slow, plodding last act that doesn’t know how to build up scares, and it really would have been better if the film hadn’t tried. It was at least mildly interesting as a character study, but once Jenny figures things out, and Gordon truly goes insane, it stops being even mildly compelling at all.

Lady, Stay Dead is a film that really needed to rethink its gender and sexual politics just a bit. Focusing on a killer is fine, and can at times be quite interesting, but it has to be handled just right to actually make the audience want to understand and care. Gordon needed to be developed more, with a touch more insight into who he was before he became a handyman at Marie’s estate. Marie needs to be written to be a more compelling character as well such that when she is attacked and killed we feel bad for her on more than just a surface level. And the last act needs a lot of work to make it more interesting, less rote and repetitive. There might be a thread of a good film somewhere in Lady, Stay Dead, but right now the most interesting, gripping part of the film is the title itself. Nothing else about this film is worth watching.