MovieChat Forums > Perfect Strangers (1984) Discussion > Perfectly acceptable

Perfectly acceptable

posted 12 years ago by WarpedRecord
2 replies | jump to latest

I found this on DVD at Big Lots for an entirely reasonable $1.88, and it was money well spent.

This is probably one of Larry Cohen's weaker films — if not the weakest — but the scrappy approach and New York locales make up for the lapses in premise and performance. Why a hitman would choose to bond with the sole witness to a murder — who isn't old enough to speak anyway — and why the child's mother would welcome a stranger into her arms at such a time are beyond me, but hey, it's a Larry Cohen film, and I appreciate his bizarro touches. I welcome Ann Magnuson's presence in any film, and the "Take Back the Night" footage is classic Cohen. 7/10 stars from me.

[–] activista 9 years ago

Agree with you there---I forgot that until you mentioned it--the "Take Back The Night" sequence---because I had a book called Take Back The Night that was all about this new movement to try and keep women safe in the streets. And,yeah, the premise is ridiculous,but it was still interesting to see how the whole thing eventually played out anyway.

[–] WarpedRecord 9 years ago

I first heard of the Take Back the Night movement in the mid-'80s, when women and their supporters would march, particularly through neighborhoods where sexual violence had occurred. Turns out the event had origins as early as 1973 and continues to this day, albeit in fragmented form:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Back_the_Night

As for this film, as I recall it's very cut-and-paste like most (maybe all) of Larry Cohen's films, but I admire his scrappy spirit even when the results aren't entirely successful.