Census Bloodbath: A Whisper To A Scream

Year:
1988
Director:
Christian I. Nyby II
Cast:
Loni Anderson, Joe Penny, June Lockhart
Run Time:
1 hour 34 minutes

Plot: Whisper Kill follows Liz Bartlett (Loni Anderson), the lead (and only?) reporter at a local newspaper called the Faircrest Falcon. When her business partner is stabbed to death after receiving a threatening phone call from a whispery voice, investigative reporter Dan Walker (Joe Penny of Bloody Birthday) takes a job at the Falcon to look into matters. As he and Liz begin to fall in love, they both suspect one another of being the killer as more whispery calls are placed and bodies begin to pile up (though it's a small pile, because this was an ABC TV movie, after all).

Various characters who are either suspects or victims float around the pair, including Liz's advice columnist mother Winifred Rogers (June Lockhart of Deadly Games), her therapist Dr. John Oxford (Jeremy Slate of The Dead Pit), her rival Oz Stevens (Joe Lerer), and Dan's friend/informant Vince Messina (James Sutorius of Cruising).

Analysis: Now, any slasher fan knows to go into a TV movie with some amount of trepidation. Exploitation movies and Standards and Practices departments aren't exactly bosom pals. However, I have found that TV movies frequently overlap with "women's picture" slashers, many of which I hold dear. In fact, the platonic ideal of the slasher TV movie, 1982's Fantasies, was put out by ABC. So I wasn't as nervous as I could have been when I was stepping into Whisper Kill.

Optimism only gets you so far, alas. Thanks to the necessity of keeping Liz a suspect for as long as possible (until the penultimate scene, in fact), this movie keeps its female lead at arm's length, much to its detriment. We're forced to split our time between Liz and Dan, the latter of whom isn't hunky or charismatic enough to hold up his end of the soapy romance. With all due respect to the titular Jake of Jake and the Fatman.

Really, nothing about the small town melodrama plot works. The dialogue is snappy without ever actually being clever, and the only supporting characters who really pop do so because of their absolutely demented 1980s hair.

Unusually, the slasher elements of Whisper Kill almost work. It's got a more sizable body count than other TV movie slashers (here's looking at you, Hotline), for one thing. There is also a bit more emphasis on depicting the process of victims being stabbed to death, even though those scenes are almost entirely bloodless. And the muffled punching noises that the foley artists have chosen to accompany the knife's movements make it sound like the citizens of Faircrest are anthropomorphic body pillows.

It's also hornier than the average TV movie. While it is outrageously bad at depicting actual eroticism thanks to the anti-chemistry between the two leads, Whisper Kill certainly wants to put their sex lives front and center. Hell, we even get a steamy "Unchained Melody" scene two full years before the premiere of Ghost.

I guess I'll leave it at this. Sure, Whisper Kill has more and better slasher touches than I was expecting, across the board. In addition to what I've already broken down, we get a black-gloved killer and a pretty decent score from the underrated Charles Bernstein (A Nightmare on Elm Street, April Fool's Day). However, these were never going to be enough to sustain a 1980s TV movie. The non-horror elements need to pull their weight and they don't, making its 94 minutes feel like an eternity.

Killer: Winifred "Winnie" Rogers (June Lockhart)

Final Girl: Liz Barlett (Loni Anderson)

Best Kill: They're all mostly comparable, but Vince's stabbing is the best because it takes place in his car, allowing the killer to do the classic horror movie thing by popping up from the backseat.

Sign of the Times: The opening scene involves a call being placed from a phone booth to a bar's pay phone.

Scariest Moment: Backseat killer, baby!

Weirdest Moment: Liz and a hungover Dan attend a birthday party for the mayor's granddaughter, where Dan puts sunglasses in the dog.

Champion Dialogue: “All your ancestors are slime!"

Body Count: 4

1. Jerry Caper is stabbed to death.
2. Oz Stevens is stabbed to death.
3. Vince Messina is stabbed in the back.
4. Winnie Rogers is shot.

TL;DR: Whisper Kill is a tedious and bland TV movie slasher.

Rating: 4/10