While Hammer Films were grinding to a halt and American horror was mostly exploring Satanism and the occult, British film director Walker was quietly making a series of early slasher flicks.

The almost campy intro with spooky music and narration tells of the disease schizophrenia before introducing us to an older man (John Leyton) who we learn is quite obsessed with young figure skater Lynne Frederick. Well, he goes completely overboard and starts committing all sorts of gory murder when Frederick gets married (much to his chagrin).

Better-than-average horror/thriller has Walker throwing out his usual amount of gore and skin (which was still sort of risky during the 70's when he made many similar movies) but this time with a pretty decent script that has a pretty good twist ending.

It's certainly competently made and watchable; but it just strikes you as too drab, uninvolving and in need of a little shot of adrenalin. Of course it all picks-up in the final third as we see a pretty cool "knitting needle through the head" death, a fairly disturbing flashback scene and aforementioned neat twist ending.

Having a good cast also helps with Frederick definitely nice to look at (with plenty of nude glimpses), Leyton doing fine as a murderer we're not given much insight into and Stephanie Beacham adding some class as Frederick's upbeat friend. It may not be high on excitement, but check this one out.

Directed By: Pete Walker.
Written By: David McGillivray.

Starring: Lynne Frederick, John Leyton, Stephanie Beacham, John Fraser.

aka: Amok; Blood Of The Undead.