Les frénétiques

This 1982 horror film stars Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro. Spinell (Rocky, Maniac) plays Vinny Durand, a New York Cabbie who fantasizes about making a horror film with scream queen/actress, Jana Bates (Munro). He travels to Cannes where she's being nominated and his obsession with Jana goes awry when her friends/associates start turning up dead. This isn't bad, The late, Spinell was great as the disturbed, yet sympathetic Vinny much like his Frank Zito character, he & Munro had good chemistry and there's some bloody/gory make-up effects. If you liked "Maniac," you might like this.

An obsessed cabbie heads to Cannes with the hopes of attracting his favorite starlet to star in his movie. As the corpses start to pile up, the audience might start thinking this cabbie will go to desperate lengths to get a star for his movie. Smart with good performances and some interesting meta moments. Also has a plentiful helping of gore and nudity. You could do much worse.

I had put off seeing this for a long time because, although an admirer of Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro, I am NOT a fan of gore. When the only video store in my area with a copy told me they would be closing, I finally gave in and rented it, knowing it may very well be my last chance. I was pleasantly surprised to see how little gore there was (and what WAS there was either too brief to really disturb me, or was obviously "movie-within-movie" fake), and by the cleverness of the script. The brilliant performance by Joe Spinell, however, came as no surprise. Playing an obsessed fan and would-be director, Spinell was both pathetic and sympathetic. I found myself feeling sorry for this desperate loser, even as I dreaded what he might do. The Cannes Film Festival setting makes this a must-see for movie buffs, who will enjoy going frame-by-frame through the montages of movie posters and marquees.