Out of the Dark(1988) Movie Review

Trailer here.

Out of the Dark is a 1988 horror movie directed by Michael Schroeder and starring Karen Black and Bud Cort.

The movie begins with a man calling a sex phone line. A woman called Camille(Black) is starting work at the sex line. A creepy clown talks to a woman in the park. He hits her with a baseball bat and kills her. The cops are on the case. She was working at the sex line. Kevin (Cameron Dye) is a photographer who also knows some of the girls at the line.  The cops pay him a visit. The cops are led by Lieutenant Myers(Tracey Walter) and McDonald. They question Kevin about the dead girl. A man called Dave (Cort) is working in the same building as the sex line. He is an accountant and he likes a woman called Barbara. She is giving one of the sex line workers, Camille, a ride home. The clown is following them.  Barbara drops her home and the clown follows her. He forces her to crash her car and then he kills her.

Kevin gets another visit from the cops. His girlfriend is Kristi and she works at the sex line. She is upset about Kevin being accused of being the killer. The boss, Ruth(Black) is not happy about all of this. A witness saw the killer and she says that he wore a clown mask. The cops decide to set up a phoneline to draw the killer out. The clown calls Camille and he gets angry with her. Later on, he finds her and he kills her. The cops realise that the clown outsmarted them. They find Camille's body. Ruth is very upset at the cops for causing the killer to strike.

Kevin and Kristi suspect Dave. They discover sex items in his office. Kevin and Kristi go to a seedy motel to hide. The killer just happens to be at the same motel. He murders a prostitute. The motel owner discovers the body. Along come the cops and Kevin and Kristi see them. They make a run for it but get caught. Kevin is taken to jail and he calls Kristi and tells her to go back to Dave's office and find something to incriminate him. She finds stuff but gets caught by Dave. He chases her and tries to kill her but he gets hit by a car and dies. The cops think that he was the killer. Kevin is cleared and released.

Kevin and Kristi go to his place in the desert. Kristi finds a clown mask in his trunk. She realises that Kevin was the real killer. He has a gun and he tells her that he used to be a professional clown. He tries to kill her and she ends up shooting him. He isn't dead though and he comes back to finish her off when he is shot dead by Meyers who found them just in time. This is a decent thriller/horror. It has some good stuff in it even though it is a little cheesy in parts. I think that it is worth a look and I will give it a 5/10.