The Wind

Just when you thought you'd heard of every horror movie villain imaginable, a new Arrow Video Blu-ray gets released to squash that notion. Before there was M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening," in 1986 a direct-to-video title called "The Wind" was written, directed, and produced by exploitation filmmaker Nico Mastorakis.

Whereas Shyamalan's "The Happening" had scientific notions about stormy weather patterns that caused people to kill each other and themselves, Mastorakis' "The Wind" uses howling winds as a plot device.

If that all sounds hokey, you're absolutely right. "The Wind" basically takes the woman-in-peril scenario and locks her up behind closed doors - as a raging windstorm occurs outside. The woman is mystery novelist Sian Anderson (Meg Foster, "They Live") who travels to a small, secluded Greek town to finish her latest book. After meeting the volatile Phil (Wings Hauser), she suspects from the get-go that he's a killer, and soon Phil begins a cat-and-mouse game with her.

"The Wind" should've been just a film short, and the tedious idea of a woman being tormented outside her rented home becomes overly redundant. A bizarre cameo by cult actor Steve Railsback ("Helter Skelter") pads the running time by about ten minutes. That leaves endless close-ups of Meg Foster looking scared and endlessly talking to herself.

The always-manic Wings Hauser ("Vice Squad") adds some much-needed adrenaline to "The Wind," and according to Nico Mastorakis in the special feature "Blowing the Wind," Hauser was drunk and/or high on drugs during the entire shoot. Hauser was almost fired on several occasions. (Hauser denies all of Mastorakis' allegations)

A unique addition to the Blu-ray is "The Sound of the Wind," an isolated soundtrack complete with scene stills from the movie.

"The Wind"
Blu-ray
$29.95
www.arrowvideo.co.uk