He Knows You're Alone
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''He Knows You're Alone'' is a 1980 American
psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
slasher film A slasher film is a subgenre of horror films involving a killer or a group of killers stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic ...
directed by Armand Mastroianni, written by Scott Parker and starring Caitlin O'Heaney,
Don Scardino Donald Joseph Scardino (born February 17, 1949) is an American television director, producer, and retired actor. Career Acting Scardino was born in New York City, to jazz musician parents, Dorothy Denny Scardino and Charles Scardino. His first ...
, Elizabeth Kemp, Tom Rolfing, and
Tom Hanks Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
in his film debut. The plot follows a woman who is stalked by a killer targeting soon-to-be brides the weekend before her wedding. Independently made by several producers, including Edgar Lansbury, ''He Knows You're Alone'' was shot on location in Mastroianni's native
Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...
, New York in December 1979 under the
working title A working title is a preliminary name for a product or project. The usage is especially common in film and TV, gaming, music and publishing. It is often styled in trade publications as (wt) and is synonymous with production title and tentative ...
''Blood Wedding''. The film was subsequently sold to Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, who retitled it and released it with
United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...
on August 29, 1980. Although the film received mixed reviews, it was a commercial success for MGM, grossing nearly $5 million at the U.S. box office. ''He Knows You're Alone'' has been credited for being one of the first horror films inspired by the success of ''
Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...
'', and shares a number of similarities with that previous hit. In the years since its release, it has received some retrospective praise from genre film critics. Film critic Robin Wood noted the film among its peers as a "highly sophisticated attempt" at analyzing
violence against women Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence (GBV) or sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), violent, violence primarily committed by Man, men or boys against woman, women or girls. Such violence is often considered hat ...
.


Plot

A young bride is murdered on her wedding day by the man she rejected for her current fiancé, Len Gamble, a detective. Several years later on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
, a young bride-to-be named Marie is stabbed to death in a movie theater while her friend Ruthie sits beside her. The killer, Ray Carlton, disappears into the night. The next morning, Ray arrives on Staten Island, where he observes university student Amy Jensen from a distance. Amy is preparing for her wedding. She, her fiancé, Phil, and his friends on their way out of town prepare for a bachelor party before the wedding. After attending a ballet class with her friends, Nancy and Joyce, the three run into their
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
professor Carl, with whom Joyce is having an affair. Amy leaves to go to a dress fitting, stopping to get ice cream on the way, where she notices a man following her. Outside the ice-cream shop, she is startled by Marvin, her ex-boyfriend, who is on a break from his job at the local
morgue A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cu ...
. Amy stops by the local dress shop for her fitting. Unbeknownst to her, as she leaves, the dressmaker is stabbed to death by Ray with a pair of scissors. Later that night, Nancy and Joyce surprise Amy at her home with a small
bachelorette party A bachelorette party (United States and Canada) or hen night (United Kingdom, UK, Republic of Ireland, Ireland and Australia) is a party held for a woman (the bride or bride-to-be) who will soon be Marriage, married. While Beth Montemurro conclud ...
. Her parents, gone for the weekend, leave Amy in charge of her kid sister, Diane. Joyce leaves the party for Carl's house, where the two begin to have sex, until the power inexplicably goes out. Carl checks on the electrical box. When he returns, he is stabbed to death by the killer with a kitchen knife after finding Joyce's lifeless body in the bed. The following morning, Marvin arrives at Amy's house and insinuates that he wants to rekindle their relationship, and Amy expresses second thoughts over her marriage to Phil. While in the kitchen, Amy sees the mysterious man standing in her yard and becomes frightened. She invites Marvin to come to a local amusement park with her, Nancy and Diane, but he declines because he has a shift at the morgue that night. Meanwhile, the police find the dressmaker's body at the shop. Detectives Frank Daley and Len Gamble arrive to investigate. Later, Amy and Nancy meet a student named Elliot while jogging through a forest trail. They attend the amusement park with him, where he questions Amy's claims of a man following her. While riding a dark ride with her sister, Amy sees Ray inside the ride, and confides in Nancy at her house that night. Amy briefly leaves to take her sister to a birthday party, leaving Nancy alone at the house. After taking a shower, Nancy puts on a record and lies down in the living room to smoke a
joint A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...
. Moments later, her throat is slashed by Ray. Amy returns and is attacked by Ray after discovering Nancy's severed head in the fish tank. She rushes to her car and struggles to drive with Ray on the roof. She crashes the car in a wooded area and runs to the nearby morgue, where she finds Marvin and phones the police. Ray enters the morgue, and Detective Gamble arrives as well. Ray chases Amy through a tunnel system in the morgue's basement. When confronted by Detective Gamble, Ray stabs him in the heart after he gets shot in his left shoulder. Nevertheless, Ray continues to pursue Amy. Amy manages to trap the wounded Ray inside a storage closet and escapes from the basement with Marvin. The two flee outside as the police arrive and enter the morgue. Marvin and Amy are to be married, implying that she cut off her marriage to Phil. As Amy sits in front of a mirror in her wedding dress, an unseen person enters the room. She stands, approaches the individual and says, "Phil, what are you doing here?", before screaming in horror.


Cast


Analysis

Film scholar John Kenneth Muir notes in his book, ''Horror Films of the 1980s'', that, like other slasher films of the period, ''He Knows You're Alone'' is structured around an organizing principle, this being a
wedding A wedding is a ceremony in which two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnicity, ethnicities, Race (human categorization), races, religions, Religious denomination, denominations, Cou ...
. In this instance, the film follows a format in which the narrative occurs during either a holiday or other important date. Whereas other contemporaneous slasher films, such as '' Friday the 13th'', utilize the summer camp setting as an organizing principle and locale, ''He Knows You're Alone'' takes place in various wedding-specific locations, such as a dressmaker's shop, a church, and the bride's home. Critic Robin Wood wrote in ''American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film'' that the film "makes a highly sophisticated attempt...  to analyze violence against women in terms of male possessiveness and the fear of female autonomy."


Production


Development

The concept for ''He Knows You're Alone'' was developed in 1979, after director Armand Mastroianni pitched an idea to producer Edgar Lansbury for a horror film based on the
urban legend Urban legend (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not. These legends can be e ...
of " The Hook", in which a young couple in a parked car are attacked by a murderer. When Mastroianni realized during the middle of the pitch that Lansbury had little interest in the project, he spontaneously suggested that the aforementioned plot be a self-referential film within a film. The idea piqued Lansbury's interest, after which Mastroianni commissioned playwright Scott Parker to write a screenplay for a
slasher film A slasher film is a subgenre of horror films involving a killer or a group of killers stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic ...
that began with an opening sequence in which two characters watch a horror film in a movie theater, during which one of them is murdered by a serial killer. The film was written under several
working title A working title is a preliminary name for a product or project. The usage is especially common in film and TV, gaming, music and publishing. It is often styled in trade publications as (wt) and is synonymous with production title and tentative ...
s, including ''Shriek'', ''The Uninvited'' and ''Blood Wedding''.


Casting

Caitlin O'Heaney auditioned for the role of Amy Jensen, and despite disliking horror films, agreed to take the part in order to gain entry into the
Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...
. She had previously appeared in a supporting role in the slasher film '' Savage Weekend'' (1979). The film marked the first film appearance of actor Tom Hanks, who played a relatively small part. In fact, it was said that Hanks's character was originally written to be killed off with Nancy's character, but because the filmmakers liked him so much, they omitted filming his death scene for the film.


Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
was originally intended to take place in
Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
, Texas, under executive producer Samuel Z. Arkoff (who had been an executive producer for other MGM releases, including '' The Amityville Horror'' the previous year), on a budget of $600,000. When Arkoff was unable to finance the film, production proceeded on a budget of approximately $250,000, with filming taking place entirely in Mastroianni's native Staten Island. The film was shot on 35mm over a period of approximately eighteen to twenty-four days in December 1979, with its climax filmed at Staten Island's historic Seaview Hospital, including the underground tunnel system beneath the structure that was used to remove dead bodies of
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
patients in the 19th century. Additional filming locations included Staten Island's High Rock Park and South Beach Amusement Park. According to director Mastroianni, the entire production from script to final edit took only six months to complete. The shoot was fast-paced for and demanding on both the cast and crew, who had to relocate between various locations on a daily basis to shoot the entire script. O'Heaney recalled that the majority of the film was shot in single takes. Filming was completed days before Christmas 1979.


Music

The original music score was composed by
Alexander Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here ar ...
and Mark Peskanov.


Release

Although independently produced, ''He Knows You're Alone'' was acquired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and released through United Artists. Executive producer Joseph Beruh sold the film to the studio after taking it to Los Angeles and screening it for potential distributors, once of which was
20th Century-Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film production and distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Com ...
. To promote the film, MGM devised a theatrical trailer that featured footage of actress Caitlin O'Heaney applying makeup in front of a mirror, during which a hand breaks through the glass and grabs her. This footage does not appear in the film, and was shot on soundstages in Los Angeles after principal photography had completed. ''He Knows You're Alone'' had its world premiere in Los Angeles August 29, 1980. The film opened in New York City the following month on September 26, showing at several cinemas in Manhattan. By November 1980, the theatrical release had expanded to 1,200 theaters.


Home media

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released ''He Knows You're Alone'' on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
October 5, 2004. On May 18, 2021, Scream Factory released the film on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
with a new 2K scan from the original interpositive, along with several new interviews with cast and crew members.


Reception


Box office

The film earned $748,824 during its August 29, 1980 debut weekend in the United States across 279 theaters, opening at number two at the United States
box office A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicket. ...
. The film remained in release for seventeen weeks in the United States, and was a box-office hit for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists, grossing $4,875,436.


Critical response

''He Knows You're Alone'' received mixed reviews from critics. Tom Buckley of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' criticized the film for "uncertain pacing, halting performances and innumerable technical flaws", while praising the performance of male lead
Don Scardino Donald Joseph Scardino (born February 17, 1949) is an American television director, producer, and retired actor. Career Acting Scardino was born in New York City, to jazz musician parents, Dorothy Denny Scardino and Charles Scardino. His first ...
. ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
''s Michael Blowen faulted the film's script and direction as "slow and strictly second rate", adding "the production values are only slightly better than those in my uncle's home movies". Kevin Thomas of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' deemed the film a "standard grisly rampaging killer fare...  there are the usual bows to Hitchcock...  but ''He Knows You're Alone'' is really no more than just another by-the-numbers piece of sickening trash". In their October 23, 1980, edition of '' Sneak Previews'', critics
Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the ''Chicago Tribune'' who co-hosted a movie review television series alongside colleague Roger Ebert. Siskel started writing for the '' ...
and
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
lambasted the film as "gruesome and despicable", likening it to similar slasher films, such as '' Friday the 13th'', '' Prom Night'' and '' Terror Train'', all released the same year. Jack Mathews of the ''
Detroit Free Press The ''Detroit Free Press'' (commonly referred to as the ''Freep'') is a major daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest local newspaper owned by Gannett (the publisher of ''USA Today''), and is operated by the Detro ...
'' wrote, "Rarely has a horror movie worked so hard for so little. There are so many cinematic shock tactics employedtacky eerie music announcing the killer's presence, shadowy forms in the foreground and background, slamming doors, blown light fuses, hands on shoulders etc.that you're numb by the sixth killing." Jimmy Summers of '' BoxOffice'' magazine gave the film a negative review, noting, "''He Knows You're Alone'' is another one of those low-budget thrillers that should carry in the credits line: "Based on characters and ideas developed by
John Carpenter John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor. Most commonly associated with horror film, horror, action film, action, and science fiction film, science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s, he is ...
." Additionally, Summers noted the lack of on-screen violence as leaving the "more blood-thirsty horror fans feeling cheated". John Dodd of the ''
Edmonton Journal The ''Edmonton Journal'' is a daily newspaper published in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It is part of the Postmedia Network. History The ''Journal'' was founded in 1903 by three local businessmen — John Macpherson, Arthur Moore and J.W. Cunn ...
'' similarly deemed the film "unoriginal and unnecessary", and a "bloody, boring walk down the aisle". John Herzfeld of ''
The Courier-Journal The ''Courier Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), and called ''The Courier-Journal'' between November 8, 1868, and October 29, 2017, is a daily newspaper published in ...
'', however, praised the film's opening film-within-a-film sequence as a "wry twist", concluding, "Despite the incompetent script and some irregular pacing, ''He Knows You're Alone'' does deliver a few surprises and some suspense".


Legacy

The film's opening sequence, featuring a character being murdered in a movie theater auditorium while watching a slasher film, was repeated in
Wes Craven Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Amongst his Wes Craven filmography, prolific filmography, Craven worked primarily in the Horror film, horror genre, particularly sla ...
's 1997 film, ''
Scream 2 ''Scream 2'' is a 1997 American slasher film directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson. It stars David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jamie Kennedy, Laurie Metcalf, Jerry O'Connell, Jada P ...
''. In a 2023 retrospective on the film for ''
/Film ''/Film'', also spelled ''SlashFilm'', is a blog that covers movie news, reviews, interviews, and trailers. It was founded by Peter Sciretta in August 2005. The site's reviews appear on Rotten Tomatoes, and as of 2024, two of its leading film cr ...
'', Anthony Crislip noted it as "an underrated slasher" despite its similarities to its contemporaries, and praised its finale as director Mastroianni's "finest work in the film" due to its use of narrow corridors and dim lighting. Nathaniel Thompson of
Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcas ...
noted a favorable retrospective assessment of the film, writing, "time has proven the lashersubgenre to have an enduring appeal that's easily survived the slings and arrows of its attackers, with this one holding a particular fascination as an early and quirky offering at the dawn of the big studio slasher boom."


Notes


References


Sources

* * * * * * * *


External links

* {{Armand Mastroianni 1980 films 1980 directorial debut films 1980 horror films 1980s slasher films 1980 independent films American independent films American exploitation films American police detective films American serial killer films American slasher films Crime horror films Films about marriage Films about stalking Films about violence against women Films about weddings in the United States Films directed by Armand Mastroianni Films set in a movie theatre Films set in Staten Island Films shot in New York City Films about home invasion Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films United Artists films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films English-language horror films English-language independent films