(*** out of *****) Two years after directing the first "Friday the 13th" movie, Cunningham came back with this more serious (but only slightly less exploitative) thriller based on the novel by Mary Higgins Clark. "The Larry Sanders Show"'s Rip Torn (with that name, he was bound to play at least one role like this) plays a murderous psychopath who kidnaps a young girl(Shawn von Schreiber) and a TV news reporter (Kate Mulgrew, from "Star Trek: Voyager") three years after raping and killing the girl's mother. He keeps them in a smallroom deep in the subterranean bowels beneath Grand Central Station. There are several suspenseful attempted-escape and chase scenes throughout the last half of the movie before it ends in typical, bloody slasher fashion. James Naughton (from "The Paper Chase" and the "Planet of the Apes" television series) plays the girl's father and Mulgrew's boyfriend, and Barbara Baxley and James Russo also appear. Old, whiney character actor William Hickey pops up briefly as an ill-fated bum. There's kind of a weak twist towards the end of the movie, and, with the high body count, Cunningham was apparently still getting 'Friday the 13th ' out of his system, but, otherwise, this is pretty good.
HIGHLIGHT: In an unexpected turn of events, Torn is attacked in a public restroom by a gang of thugs and beaten up. Even though he's the bad guy (and a nasty one at that), for a brief moment, you're tricked into thinking, `C'mon, Rip, kick their asses!'
HIGHLIGHT: In an unexpected turn of events, Torn is attacked in a public restroom by a gang of thugs and beaten up. Even though he's the bad guy (and a nasty one at that), for a brief moment, you're tricked into thinking, `C'mon, Rip, kick their asses!'