I came across a movie on Amazon Prime called Schizoid, starring the infamous Klaus Kinski, who is maybe better known for his starring role in the 1979 German remake of Nosferatu (as well as his strange and inexcusable behavior). In Schizoid, released in 1980, Kinski plays a Los Angles psychiatrist who runs a group therapy session that features Julie (Mariana Hill, from Blood Beach), a newspaper columnist who is receiving threats in the mail from a stalker. Things heat up when people in Julie’s group therapy start turning up dead.
For what it is--a low budget horror thriller--Schizoid is not bad, not bad at all. Despite it’s slasher trappings, writer/director David Paulsen manages to create a decent murder mystery amidst the gory kill scenes. The cast of suspects include Donna Wilkes (Angel) as the doctor’s volatile daughter, Craig Wasson (Ghost Story) as Julie’s ex-husband, Flo Gerrish (Don’t Answer The Phone), and Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future), as another member of Julie’s group therapy. Paulsen expertly keeps you guessing throughout the film--right up until the climax, which manages to still be very suspenseful after the killer is revealed.
Kinski claimed in his memoir Kinski Uncut that he had an affair with Donna Wilkes while shooting Schizoid (he doesn’t use her name in the book, but the film is implied). She has never confirmed or denied this--but, as noted earlier, the late Kinski had a notoriously bad reputation for acting like a jerk both on and off film sets, so perhaps this claim should be taken with a grain of salt. To get a view of his reprehensible behavior, just watch Burden of Dreams, the making-of documentary of Fitzcarraldo, where Kinski oftentimes comes off as a certifiable lunatic. Kinski’s fellow actors should have received combat pay just for dealing with him.
The most impressive thing about Schizoid is how it came to be. David Paulsen was told by producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus that they needed a movie for Klaus Kinski--who was under contract to them--and that Paulsen only had a month to get everything set up. Considering the rush job that the pre-production must have been like (including coming up with a script), the fact that the movie turned out to be this enjoyable is a testament to Paulsen’s talent. Granted, it might not be as slick as a Hitchcock film, but given the rapid set-up time, and limited budget (plus dealing with Kinski), in the end, Schizoid turned out better than one would think it would. --SF
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