A lorra lorra confusion
BLIND DATE
. 1984/18/106m
“The ultimate hi-tech thriller.”
Director/Writer: Nico Mastorakis / Writer: Fred Perry / Cast: Joseph Bottoms, Kirstie Alley, Keir Dullea, Lana Clarkson, James Daughton, Charles Nicklin.
Body Count: 5
Greek exploitation director Nico Mastorakis turned in this good looking techno giallo, which doesn’t make a whoooole lotta sense.
The ever-amusingly named Joseph Bottoms is an American working in Athens, who is still not over the death of his model ex-girlfriend, but is going out with Kirstie Alley’s …whatever Kirstie Alley is in this movie.
Meanwhile, a shadowy taxi driver is picking up young women, drugging and drawing lines on their nude bodies, and then going at them with a scalpel. Well, supposedly, there’s barely a shaving cut’s amount of blood to be seen. Interestingly, the sole male victim is the only one we see offed.
One night, Joseph is spying on a lookalike of the dead ex while she’s making out with a guy in a car. They see him, the man gives chase, and Joseph runs into a branch and knocks himself out, waking up blind. The doctors, however, cannot find anything wrong with him and suggest it’s a trauma-induced psychological thing.
Keir Dullea implants a device that will convert signals to Joseph’s nervous system via headphones and Walkman or something, and he sees outlines of everything like an Etch-a-Sketch on dark mode. His stalking with the lookalike brings him to witnessing the murder of another poor soul; the killer sees and gives chase. Joseph decides to later find the killer and manages to steal a car and drive it through the city, despite seeing a bunch of lines like a low-rent version of A-Ha’s Take on Me video.
Blind Date is a strange one: The police are nowhere to be seen, meaning most of the murders seem surplus to requirements, the victims mostly given no lines whatsoever, just seen topless and pathetic – including Deanna Troi actress Marina Sirtis as a hooker; elsewhere there are gay (?) showtune singing muggers, cerebral Pong, driving around with headphones on, the promise of a sequel that never was at the end of the credits, but also some nice visuals, a sexy cast and all the usual silly coincidences that pepper this subgenre.
Blurbs-of-interest: Bottoms was later in Open House; Keir Dullea was in the original Black Christmas. Mastorakis directed the opening scenes of Darkroom.