Out of the Dark Reviews

The comely employees of Suite Nothings, a Los Angeles phone sex service, are used to creepy phone calls. But one regular caller is too creepy even for them, and rightly so. He's a serial killer who, not content to role-play his fantasies over the telephone, dons a clown mask and begins murdering the Suite operators. The chief suspects are freelance photographer Kevin (Cameron Dye), whose girlfriend works for Suite Nothings, and creepy accountant Stringer (Bud Cort), who rents the office next door. Before Bobo the clown's identity is revealed, director Michael Scroder and screenwriters J. Greg De Felice and Zane W. Levitt invite viewers to wallow in a series of surprisingly explicit sex scenes and typically gory murder sequences. The movie's only real selling point is the eccentric array of supporting players, from veteran exploitation actress Karen Black, who plays the hard-boiled owner of Suite Nothings, to indie-movie oddball Cort (HAROLD AND MAUDE), one-time Hollywood hearthrob Tab Hunter, director Paul Bartel (EATING RAOUL) and Glen Milstead, better known to trash-movie fans as Divine, larger-than-life star of many John Waters films. This was Milstead's last role, and he's not in drag; it also reunited him — in the credits, if not onscreen — with his LUST IN THE DUST co-star Hunter.