Halloween for People Who Think Michael Myers Talks Too Much
In 1986, the slasher genre had been bled nearly dry. By then, audiences had endured masked maniacs, supernatural killers, and more teenage corpses than a small-town morgue could count. Into this oversaturated landscape crept Torment, a psychological horror film that critics at the time compared favorably to Halloween. Which only proves that critics sometimes mistake dim lighting and slow pacing for intelligence. If John Carpenter’s masterpiece is a symphony of dread, Torment is someone banging on a piano with oven mitts.
Daddy Issues with a Body Count
The premise is simple, though the film insists on dragging it out like a drunk uncle telling a joke: Jennifer (Taylor Gilbert) goes to stay at the estate of her wheelchair-bound future mother-in-law, Mrs. Courtland (Eve Brenner), while her fiancé Michael—helpfully also a detective—is off postponing their wedding because of a murder case. Already, we’re in melodrama territory, where matrimony is less about love and more about whether Dad shows up to ruin everything. And boy, does he.
Enter Bob (William Witt), a sweaty, middle-aged man with a fondness for breaking into homes, shooting couples, and leaving corpses floating in the Bay. He’s Jennifer’s long-lost father, though he conveniently forgets to send a Hallmark card before showing up at dinner with a photo album of his murder victims. If Father of the Bride ever wanted to experiment with necrophilia, this is the dry run.
The Killer Who Looked Like a Bad Blind Date
Bob is not an iconic horror villain. He’s not mysterious, he’s not masked, and he doesn’t even have a cool gimmick. He looks like the guy who hangs around the bar too long after last call, sweating through his Members Only jacket while asking if you’ve “got a light.” Watching him kill people feels less like a cinematic nightmare and more like a PSA against letting strangers crash on your couch. When he finally reveals to Jennifer that he’s a serial killer, it’s not shocking—it’s just tedious confirmation of what the audience already knew the moment he appeared on screen.
Wheelchair vs. Meat Cleaver
The film tries to wring suspense out of Mrs. Courtland’s paranoia. She’s obsessed with checking locks, convinced intruders lurk around every corner. Of course, she’s right—Bob is stalking her. But watching her compulsively check doors and windows isn’t suspense; it’s a real estate open house with bad lighting. When Bob does attack her, she fights back with admirable tenacity, slashing his wrist and barricading herself with a pistol. And yet somehow, the movie manages to make a gunfight with a serial killer feel like two raccoons fighting over a trash can lid.
Jennifer: The Dimmest Bulb in San Francisco
Jennifer, our ostensible heroine, spends most of the film wavering between disbelief and bland acceptance. When Mrs. Courtland insists a man broke into her room, Jennifer dismisses it as hysteria. When her father shows up uninvited, she takes him at his word that he’s just “early for the wedding.” When the kitchen window is shattered, she blinks in mild surprise, as if someone forgot to water the plants. If Laurie Strode from Halloween is a symbol of resourceful survival, Jennifer is the patron saint of willful ignorance. You half expect Bob to hand her his bloody axe and hear her say, “Oh Dad, you and your hobbies.”
The Plot Stumbles Around in the Dark
After the first act, Torment settles into a cycle: Bob lurks, Mrs. Courtland panics, Jennifer dithers, and someone dies. The housekeeper gets stabbed, the police are useless, and even a poor beat cop named Bogartis gets axed before he can finish delivering his one line. Bob eventually cuts the power, plunging the mansion into darkness, which the filmmakers use as an excuse to save on lighting costs. What’s meant to be suspenseful is instead visually muddy. Half the time you’re not sure if Bob is stalking his daughter or just looking for the bathroom.
The Climactic “Showdown” (Or: Just Shoot Him Already)
The climax involves Bob axing his way through doors, strangling Mrs. Courtland, and dragging Jennifer around like a misbehaving Labrador. Jennifer threatens to shoot him several times but apparently forgets that guns are more effective when fired. By the time the police finally arrive and shoot Bob dead, the audience isn’t relieved—they’re grateful the movie has finally decided to end.
Praise from the Wrong Corners
Some critics in 1986 called the screenplay “intelligent.” That’s like praising a McDonald’s hamburger for being less greasy than usual. The film flirts with psychological depth—Jennifer torn between filial loyalty and moral horror—but the execution is so flat that the conflict never resonates. The dialogue is serviceable at best, laughable at worst. Bob’s attempts at explaining himself (“I’m in trouble, honey… I just need your help”) sound less like a confession of murder and more like a plea to borrow gas money.
The Cheapness Shows
Torment was distributed by New World Pictures, Roger Corman’s old empire of fast and cheap filmmaking. Sometimes that cheapness produced scrappy gems. Other times it produced Torment. The film has the look of a TV movie padded with extra violence to justify an R-rating. There are no inventive kills, no stylish camerawork, and no memorable scares. Even the setting—a mansion outside San Francisco—feels underused, like the filmmakers rented the location but couldn’t afford more than two rooms and a staircase.
Family Drama Masquerading as Horror
What the film really wants to be is a family tragedy. Jennifer is forced to confront the horror that her father is a monster, while her mother-in-law-to-be turns out to be both paranoid and vindicated. That could be potent material in more capable hands. But here, it’s undercut by clumsy direction and William Witt’s sweaty, unconvincing menace. Instead of Greek tragedy, we get community-theater melodrama with a body count.
The Real Torment
The title isn’t about Jennifer or Mrs. Courtland. It’s about us. The real torment is sitting through 90 minutes of a film that wants to be Hitchcock but has the cinematic vocabulary of a made-for-TV Columbo knockoff. The movie mistakes dim hallways for atmosphere and family squabbles for drama. What it delivers is an endurance test.
Final Bell: A Bad Father, A Bad Film
In the end, Torment is not scary, not thrilling, and certainly not original. It’s a film that believes revealing the killer is the heroine’s father is enough to shock an audience numb from years of slashers. It isn’t. It’s just depressing. If Halloween is the cool uncle who sneaks you beer at Thanksgiving, Torment is the drunk dad who ruins dinner by bringing up politics.
So no, Torment isn’t a hidden gem. It’s the VHS you rented by accident because the cover art promised thrills that never arrive. The only psychological horror here is the realization that you’ve wasted your evening watching a movie that mistakes parental disappointment for suspense.
