aka: Promising Young Capitalist. DEADLY DREAMS (Kristine Peterson, 1988)
Editor s Note: Wild Women with Steak Knives is a new column from author profiling a woman-directed horror film that s been largely overlooked or forgotten.
It’s Christmas Eve, and wholesome little white bread Alex Torme glows as the family prepares for the festivities to begin. All except his father, that is, who is busy screaming down the phone at the wife of a man whom he recently fired – yes, on Christmas Eve – so we already have a feeling that karmic retribution will be no doubt impressive. We don t need to wait long to have this confirmed as the husband of the woman on the phone, the newly-unemployed Norman Perkins (Duane Whitaker), bursts into the opulent home wearing a satisfyingly creepy animal mask and shoots Alex s parents to death in front of the young child. You read right: Norman Perkins. You want a name drenched in slasher history, its love for Hitchcock s