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This is one of those rare slasher films where you actually want nearly everyone to survive. I found myself halfway through this film thinking, I wish this was a comedy or a drama so I wouldn't have to watch these people die. The slasher elements are actually the weakest part of the story in my opinion.

The lead final girl was a bizarre choice for the role. Something about those eyes. Very good actress though. The supporting cast is excellent. I thought I might finally see Tom Hanks get killed. Alas it wasn't to be.

If you've watched Halloween 700 times and have worn out The Burning, My Bloody Valentine and The Prowler, give this Suckerbugger a chance. You Shant regret it. Shant.

Sure, this movie is definitely a Halloween clone, but why should that mean it's bad? If Halloween is so good and this movie resembles it, then why not like this one as well? I don't understand why so many people have a problem with that. I mean, Halloween itself is a clone of another movie anyway (Black Christmas). So if you can accept that, then accept this one too.

Out of all the 80's slashers, He Knows You're Alone definitely ranks up there with the best and most underrated. Right from the clever opening sequence (which was later copied for the opening of Scream 2), I was instantly hooked. From there, it develops a quick and simple backstory where we learn that the killer was dumped by his fiancé so she could marry another man. And as a result, a few screws are pulled loose in his head and he begins hacking up a bunch of brides-to-be, which brings us to the main character of the film and her friends who he begins to stalk.

The pacing throughout the film was very well done. It built up a very effect creepy atmosphere that oozed with this sort of quiet dread that can really manage to make you feel uneasy. The characters were actually quite likable here, which is something of a rarity in the slasher genre, and they were very well acted (including Tom Hanks in his very first movie appearance). The great musical score, while it will definitely remind you of the Main Title theme of Halloween, also had it's own unique sound that made it very memorable and haunting. It really helped make the atmosphere even creepier, especially afterwards when you've finished watching the movie and the theme is still stuck in your head. Another major plus involves the killer. We barely get to see him and when we do, we're reduced to only a tight shot on his creepy bulging eyes. And it's pretty refreshing to see a killer's bare face since most slasher maniacs always wear a mask.

So if you're a fan of Halloween or other similar themed horror movies, then I would definitely recommend this one. It's a real shame that this one got overlooked during the whole slasher boom that Halloween started back in the 70's and 80's. It's pretty creepy and well worth watching overall.

He Knows You're Alone seemed to come pretty early in the 80's slasher boom, so it hues closer to Halloween than, say, Friday the 13th in the gore department. It fancies character development and suspense over cheesy effects and severed limbs flying everywhere and it's all the better for it.

Despite a silly detective subplot that feels unneeded (if we're being honest, most detective subplots in these kinds of movies are unneeded), He Knows You're Alone is a fairly well paced and suspenseful slasher film centering around Amy, a bride to be with cold feet, who's being stalked by a mysterious man. She sees him at the bridal store, ice cream shop, outside her window, and even in a carnival haunted house. He's definitely been taking a few pages from the Michael Myers playbook, because he's taking his sweet time to get to her by disposing of her friends and loved ones first, all the while a slightly familiar piano/synth theme plays.

This movie is mostly known for being the breakthrough film of Tom Hanks these days, but He Knows You're Alone stands quite well on its own two legs as a somewhat scary example of a slasher movie. It has its pacing issues here and there, but the characters are well drawn for a film of this type and that just adds to the suspense.

With a title like this and a trend of mindless slashers just burgeoning in the early 80s, one might think this film would have little to offer. I was mildly pleasantly surprised how fairly well-put together the film is. The story is not all that inventive about a loose murderer who having killed at a wedding now kills girls about to be married. The opening murder in the movie theater is one of the most effective scenes in the whole film as it sets the tone for the film and, with slasher film playing during murder, firmly plants tongue in cheek making fun of itself. I can respect any film doing that at the beginning. The story then sets up with one girl in particular being preyed upon by the killer shortly before she is intended to be married(isn't that death enough?)What sets this film apart from the many clones that follow and the shorter than you might suspect list of those filmed beforehand is that this film has some talent in it. Not great talent but talent nonetheless. Armand Mastroianni does an effective job behind the camera creating some pretty chilling scenes despite having virtually no budget. His approach to filming Tom Rolfing as the murderer was a good choice; have the killer lurking but rarely ever seen fully. His presence is felt through much of the film creating tension. Nice move. The director also was very good at pacing the action in the film. The actors are all decent(with the exception of a policeman working on the case prior to the new prey - Whew! he is bad). A very young, unknown Tom Hanks has a small role, and one can see some obvious talent in his unimportant role. One flaw in the direction might be the overuse of the eye close-up of virtually everyone in the film. I cannot remember seeing so many eyeballs so close, but some of these also help aid the suspense. A little goes a long way though. Again, not a great film but an entertaining one in the sub-genre of the slasher film. It is miles ahead in almost every regard over tripe like Friday the 13th.

While Psycho was one of the great films of all-time, we've all had to pay a high price ever since. The slasher genre was ignited by the phenomenal success of John Carpenter's Psycho homage "Halloween", and an interminable series of slasher movies followed in the late '70s and early '80s. Halloween II, Happy Birthday To Me, Friday the 13th, The Final Terror, Visiting Hours, Prom Night and He Knows You're Alone are just a handful of titles that spring to mind. He Knows You're Alone is a fairly forgettable example from 1980, but it has sporadic moments of suspense and is of curiosity interest as the movie debut of Tom Hanks.

A knife-wielding killer (Tom Rolfing) preys upon young brides-to-be. Years earlier, he murdered his ex-girlfriend on her wedding day and has been pursued ever since by the cop, Len Gamble (Lewis Arlt), to whom she was due to be wed. The disturbed psycho starts a new campaign of bride-brutalising, first stabbing an engaged woman in a movie theater, and then stalking resourceful young Amy Jensen (Caitlin O'Heaney, in a very winning performance), whose future husband is away on a bachelor weekend. One by one, Amy's friends fall foul of the killer, until she seeks the aid of her ex-boyfriend, oddball morgue attendant Marvin (Don Scardino), in escaping from her stalker.

Director Armand Matroianni (son of actor Marcello) borrows heavily from earlier genre entries. His build-up in the murder sequences is almost identical to Carpenter's use of lighting, music and point-of-view camera shots in Halloween. The gore is kept to a minimum (apart from a quite bloody severed-head-in-a-fishtank scene) and a greater emphasis is placed on suspense. Alas, many of the "suspenseful" moments are rather fluffed because the director makes it too obvious when the jump-out-of-your-seat moments are about to occur. Hanks has a very small role as a psychology student who gives the film's self-referential speech about why people love to be scared by horror movies. He's competent in the role, but one wouldn't have predicted from this evidence that he would go on to become a super-star. A major flaw with the film is that Tom Rolfing's killer character is supposed to be a bride killer, but he breaks his own rules on numerous occasions by hacking down victims who are not brides-to-be. In fact, some of his murders are so senseless and unmotivated that he comes across more as a rampaging killing machine than anything else. It just seems to me that films of this ilk should at least make a small amount of sense, at least on their own terms.He Knows You're Alone is a competent and forgettable slasher film... if you're a fan of the genre you'll like it, if you're not you won't.