My review was written in April 1989 after a Midtown Manhattan screening.
"Cameron's Closet" is an ambitious but very disappointing horror film. Pic arrived tardily in Manhattan theaters months after its poster went up in subway displays, just in time for its appearance in video stores.
Attempt at a minor league "Exorcist" on a puny budget is a mistake. Levitation and other effects are merely okay and the pic lacks the scope of a horror epic. Gary ("The Howling") Brandner merely has fashioned a convoluted tale of a monster in the closet of little boy Cameron (Scott Curtis).
The kid has been experimented upon (a la Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom") by his dad Tab Hunter, combining psychokinesis with demonology to unleash a monster (a demon worshipped by the Mayans, no less).
Hunter exits early, killed by the demon, and mains tory psychically (and unconvincingly) links Cameon with the police detective (Cotter smith) assigned coincidentally o the serial murder caused by the hellish critter. Smith's real-life mate, Mel Harris of tv's "thirtysomething", is cast as a psychiatrist treating both Curtis and Smith (!), latter suffering from blackouts caused by the demon.
Not helped by flat lighting of interiors and dullish Armand Mastroianni direction, pic plods to several confrontations with the monster, poorly executed by Carlo Rambaldi to look like Batman wearing his cowl. An extraneous near-incest scene is pointlessly thrown in near the end like an audience wakeup call.
Harris adds plenty of class to the proceedings, while Smith is bland and little Curti merely competent. Chuck McCann scores in a non-comedic role as a boozing ex-scientist.
"Cameron's Closet" is an ambitious but very disappointing horror film. Pic arrived tardily in Manhattan theaters months after its poster went up in subway displays, just in time for its appearance in video stores.
Attempt at a minor league "Exorcist" on a puny budget is a mistake. Levitation and other effects are merely okay and the pic lacks the scope of a horror epic. Gary ("The Howling") Brandner merely has fashioned a convoluted tale of a monster in the closet of little boy Cameron (Scott Curtis).
The kid has been experimented upon (a la Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom") by his dad Tab Hunter, combining psychokinesis with demonology to unleash a monster (a demon worshipped by the Mayans, no less).
Hunter exits early, killed by the demon, and mains tory psychically (and unconvincingly) links Cameon with the police detective (Cotter smith) assigned coincidentally o the serial murder caused by the hellish critter. Smith's real-life mate, Mel Harris of tv's "thirtysomething", is cast as a psychiatrist treating both Curtis and Smith (!), latter suffering from blackouts caused by the demon.
Not helped by flat lighting of interiors and dullish Armand Mastroianni direction, pic plods to several confrontations with the monster, poorly executed by Carlo Rambaldi to look like Batman wearing his cowl. An extraneous near-incest scene is pointlessly thrown in near the end like an audience wakeup call.
Harris adds plenty of class to the proceedings, while Smith is bland and little Curti merely competent. Chuck McCann scores in a non-comedic role as a boozing ex-scientist.