The Drifter

Driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Julia Robbins (Kim Delaney) picks up a hitchhiker (Miles O'Keefe) and has a one night stand with him. Back in the city, he soon turns into a stalker and starts calling her non-stop, which is bad news because she is in a relationship with a lawyer (Timothy Bottoms). This was one of the thousands of erotic thrillers unleashed after the success of Fatal Attraction (1987) and writer-director Larry Brand (who also plays a cop) does a nice job of turning convention on its ear by having the handsome O'Keefe as the unhinged, spurned lover. There are several twists in this one and Brand pulls them all off well. He would also make a Poe film for Corman (Masque of the Red Death) and a similar thriller (Overexposed with Catherine Oxenberg).

I have a strong suspicion that producer Roger Corman, upon seeing the huge success of the major studio movie FATAL ATTRACTION, rushed this movie into production. This may explain why that, even for Roger Corman, this is an extremely tacky production. Even on DVD, the movie's visuals look so bad that you would swear this was made in the early 1970s and kept unmaintained on a shelf for the next fifteen years. There's bad sound (a couple of times when a car door slams shut, you don't hear anything!), bad continuity from shot to shot, and sets and furnished actual rooms looking hastily set up and constructed. You even clearly see the shadow of the boom mike on the ground in one shot! But even if the movie had better production values, it wouldn't help that much. The acting by all the leads is lacking passion, coming across instead as bland and lacking real emotion. But the script really drops the ball. After a while, the movie stops trying to build terror, and almost forgets the character of the drifter in the second half of the movie! Projects like this explain why Corman's movies soon after stopped getting theatrical releases.

Ostensibly shot in only seventeen days, and with a scant budget of less than half a million dollars, this exercise from the cinematic Theatre of Paranoia is similar in tone to many other low cost works of Roger Corman, executive producer for this effort that is filmed largely in and near the Wilshire area of Los Angeles, but although a suspenseful mood is maintained throughout, a plot having little relevance to logic cripples the affair. Julia (Kim Delaney), a clothing designer driving from a fashion showing in San Francisco back to her home in Los Angeles, through the misguidance of lust picks up a hitchhiker, Trey (Miles O'Keefe), and spends a night of carnal pleasure with him in a motel, only to discover that her attraction to this man, although plainly genuine, is going to cause severe problems for her because he begins to stalk her at her home and place of employment. When Julia's best friend, who is staying with her following a breakup with her fiancé, is murdered in their apartment, Julia becomes terrified that Trey's designs upon her may be more malign than amourous, and as an attempt to have him removed from her life, she calls upon her local police department for assistance, there meeting Detective Morrison, played by the film's director and screenwriter Larry Brand, who thereby assumes a critical role as the film approaches its climax that also engages Julia's first-string lover, Arthur (Timothy Bottoms), in addition to a private investigator that Arthur has hired to follow her due to his suspicions regarding possible inconstancy on her part. In spite of a steadily worsening storyline and an ending that is completely ludicrous, director Brand paces the action skillfully, therewith maintaining a viewer's interest that is heightened even more by a good deal of attention that is given to detail, while the cinematography and the editing of David Sperling and Stephen Mark, respectively, are valuable visual contributions, but unplanned presence of microphone booms, attention disturbing jump cuts, and erratic sound quality that too often shields dialogue from being comprehensible, all combine with the shabbily constructed script to drop the production into the extensive catalogue of unmemorable films.

This was not outrageously wild or gory or intense but it keeps up a consistent suspense level. Kim plays her role well. She proves herself to be pretty ballsy under fearful circumstances so I respected her and I respected her as a hard-working professional.

There seems to be a blue color scheme in some of the scenes. Kim's wardrobe is well-chosen. The outdoor restaurant with the picnic tables and the bikers seems an apt, realistic locale. Kim's apartment is stylish, austerely furnished in New Mexico Native American style. So the movie has a certain amount of flair.

The concluding twist works adequately well. This low-key thriller was fairly enjoyable.

Most of us enjoy it when we find a "small", non-big-budget film that surprises us with its adept use of limited resources. "The Drifter" is just such a movie. It is filled with 1980's stylistic touches, and the big hair, moral freedoms, etc., that let you know right away that you have returned to that time zone. So what? Movies, for the most part, are products of their age and we should not hesitate to enjoy them as such, despite some reviewers tendency to slash away at any film (and call it dated) that dared to celebrate its "current sensibilities".

"The Drifter" focused on its stalker theme and managed to do so with panache, plot twists, suspense, and ensemble acting that carries the viewer happily forward. There is a well done sense of unease that permeates the setup and then culminates with violent, frightening moments that cause the flick to bear repeating. This film is a good one to share with folks who appreciate when a "small" film over-delivers. Whatever you do, make sure you rent or buy this little thriller. If you catch it in edited form on television you will miss the "kick" from the plot twists and wonder why some of us admire it so much.