Le souffle de la peur

Director Nico Mastorakis (Island of Death) returns to the horror genre and the Greek Isles with the suspenseful and intense The Wind. A slight mixture of the slasher, cat & mouse and giallo genres, The Wind looks great, thanks mostly to the imposing Greek locale high on the edge of a cliff. Mastorakis wastes no time jumping right into the action with writer Anderson (Meg Foster) encountering fellow American Phil (Hauser) within minutes of her arrival. When Foster explains she is a mystery writer, Hauser creepily quips, "If you need to know anything about death, I'm right next door." As the nights events progress, the viewer is kept wondering if all that has been happening is just figments of a writer's overactive imagination.

As with most horror films, the success lies squarely on the shoulders of the villain and, thankfully, Mastorakis has Hauser to fill this role. Hauser gives a whacked out performance on the level of his killer pimp turn in the sleaze classic Vice Squad (1982). Whether it is huffing poppers or making threatening phone calls, Wings is in top form in this film. It is truly a shame that his talents aren't fully recognized by the mainstream. Foster provides a worthy adversary to Hauser's unhinged Phil, but there are a few moments that smack of falsity here (namely a few of her one liners). Railsback pops up about two-thirds of the way through as a sailor who helps the police investigate. It is almost a cameo-sized role, but he is good in it and helps spur the ideas that Foster may be making this up.

If the film does have any faults, it is an entirely useless subplot involving a honeymooning American couple. While the point (they almost provide safe haven for Foster) was not lost on this viewer, it seemed a bit contrived and seems like an attempt to pad the film. Regardless, The Wind is still an intense and stylish 90 minutes that is definitely worth a watch.

I love Meg Foster, Wings Hauser, slasher films, and Greek locations, but the script for The Wind never rises to the occasion and everything feels bland, predictable, and uninspired. It's as if everyone involved just wanted a vacation to Greece so they throw this script together over a weekend to give them an excuse to go.

Suspenseful, atmospheric thriller finds Meg Foster as a novelist who is stalked by Wings Hauser in a small, deserted foreign village during he middle of a really bad wind storm. Takes it time getting started, but worth the wait. The last third is especially exciting. Meg Foster is solid as usual, though Hauser goes over the top. Rated R; Violence and Profanity.

"The Wind" or it's much better title which I viewed it under "The Edge Of Terror" is an OK movie, although I was lured by the DVD'S interesting artwork, which made this movie look like a body count, but it's not although there are some deaths, 3 in fact but they aren't anything special very bloodless and quite limp.

The storyline is quite interesting where we get a novelist named Sian Anderson leaves her L.A. pad to travel to a remote Greek island to write her new book, unaware that her fellow neighbour and handyman is about to snap and begin a murder spree. Although this movie picks up a decent pace, it's just the so called wind wasn't as dramatic as it should have been, and despite the decent enough pace this movie still tends to drag in places like before the climax and although the chase scenes are pretty good it just wasn't tense enough for my taste and some of the moments that should have been shocking just wasn't horrific enough.

Well there is a lot to like about this movie firstly the cast are interesting namely Meg Foster who plays the lead character, a very underrated actress who should be more well known and she does a great job here and carries the movie on her shoulders effortlessly and Robert Morley was quite fun as the pompus landlord and Wings Hauser as the maniac did okay, but not quite menacing enough though but he did pretty good.

All in all "The Edge Of Terror" is pretty tame thriller with some decent moments but not enough to shine, and the pointless scenes that are just there to pad out the running time, like when the honeymoon couple show up stranded, they should have got murdered, now that would have been a great climax, so not a bad film by any means, just don't expect a full on slasher movie or you will be disappointed.

Mystery writer Sian Anderson (Meg Foster) goes on vacation to Greece to get a little writing done in a secluded village. She immediately gets on the bad side of a handyman Phil (Wings Hauser) when she sees him burying a human body. From then on, Sian is on the run from the crazed mad man who wants to get rid of the witness.

While The Wind has a great concept, it's not very involving or exciting in spite of some nice visuals and game performances by Foster and Hauser who seem to be giving it their all. The script feels rushed and a little on the bland side. There's a completely useless subplot involving an American couple who are on their honeymoon that kills too much time and a story thread involving Sian's boyfriend (David McCallum) ends up being a waste of time as well.

There's an almost interesting idea that tells you that Sian might be making all of this up due to her overactive writer's imagination, but they don't hold on that long enough to make it very compelling.

For viewers expecting gore, you'll be very unimpressed as The Wind keeps things in a very PG territory which gives the film a slight made for TV quality until Foster unleashes a few F-bombs and you're reminded that it's an R rated film. At best, The Wind is something to have on in the background.