VISITING HOURS is a largely laughed-at serial killer flick starring Michael Ironside. I suppose many of the laughs generate from William Shatner being in the film, playing a concerned boyfriend. I’ve never understood the fixation with Shatner as a comedy figure. Shatner is OK in his role, playing it completely straight and not completely terribly. It seems in getting fixated on the (in my view, non-existent) laughs from Shatner, viewers seem to have a blind spot to a lot of good things that VISITING HOURS achieves.<\/p>\n
Ironside is strong as the killer (Colt Hawker), whose desire to kill comes from a terrible childhood and an abusive father. He identifies with his father, and loathes women because his mother threw boiling water over his Pa’s face. Seems a bit of a stretch, but it wouldn’t be the first time sometimes chosen the abuser over the person they abuse.<\/p>\n
Colt becomes a misogynist, and turns his attention onto Deborah Ballin, who speaks out against violence towards women. She’s a little militant about it and annoys a few people, so it’s hard for the cops to figure out that Colt is the one hunting her down.<\/p>\n
Some of the kill scenes are genuinely affecting. Colt likes to takes pictures of his victims as they’re dying, and one – where he pulls a breathing tube from an elderly lady – is harrowing. Don’t forget that Ironside was great in STARSHIP TROPPERS and brilliant in TOTAL RECALL as the supremely slimy Richter, and he excels in a similar role here. It’s pretty baffling why Ironside ended up in TV series\/movie hell given his excellence in playing the bad guy. Just the luck of the draw.<\/p>\n
But the main plus of VISITING HOURS is that it’s incredibly well shot. It’s wildly voyeuristic, with lots of uncomfortable close-ups and point-of-view shots… and lots of lingering on people’s suffering. The director – Jean-Claude Lord – has made nothing else of note. Even his name rhymes in a comedic way. Lord started out in France, then ended up doing US TV movies. But VISITING HOURS has a slight Hitchcock vibe and the level of voyeurism that makes you feel a little grubby just watching the damn movie.<\/p>\n
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VISITING HOURS is a largely laughed-at serial killer flick starring Michael Ironside. I suppose many of the laughs generate from William Shatner being in the film, playing a concerned boyfriend. I’ve never understood the fixation with Shatner as a comedy figure. Shatner is OK in his role, playing it completely straight and not completely terribly….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4.jpg",789,1200,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4-197x300.jpg",197,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4-768x1168.jpg",768,1168,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4-673x1024.jpg",673,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4.jpg",789,1200,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4.jpg",789,1200,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4.jpg",789,1200,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4.jpg",789,1200,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/D9pxD0cX4AAKyR4.jpg",197,300,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"VISITING HOURS is a largely laughed-at serial killer flick starring Michael Ironside. I suppose many of the laughs generate from William Shatner being in the film, playing a concerned boyfriend. I’ve never understood the fixation with Shatner as a comedy figure. Shatner is OK in his role, playing it completely straight and not completely terribly....","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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