Visiting Hours is a low-key horror melodrama made specifically for females. The protagonists are strong females, the lead males are William Shatner, and the antagonist is a sadistic sexist who gets-off on raping, torturing, and killing women.
I'm not giving anything away here.
All things told, Visiting Hours really isn't a bad flick, it just telegraphs its everything from the opening lines. You aren't going to find a single surprise here, unless you count the climactic gaffe, but it does a decent job of telling its story - it just doesn't bother to lay that story out so much as put it through the paces. It's your typical, 1980's, paint-by-numbers psycho-drama and there's not much else to say about that.
The acting is what makes Visiting Hours worth mentioning at all. While Shatner does his usual Shatting about, the lead (Lee Grant) is strong, and the killer is none other than Michael Ironside. All of the actresses turn in above-average performances, but it just isn't enough to push this B-grader into A-territory.
On the plus-side, Visiting Hours really is a decent slasher to watch with chicks - chicks who don't particularly like horror movies, that is. Everyone who does like a good slasher can safely move along, because there really isn't much to see here.
© C Harris Lynn, 2011
A rambling melange of pop-culture.
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