Don't Answer The Phone (1980) – Robert Hammer.

Most genuinely erotic men want to be more like Nicholas Worth's psychopathic shutter-bug Kurt Smith in Don't Answer The Phone, this certainly isn't empirical truth, merely something I like to think about. Don't Answer The Phone remains one of the hotter cookie-cutter 80s psycho slashers, eloquently buoyed by an energetic, squelchy, schizo-synth score, and viscerally satisfying strangulations by rape/murder/death/kill messiah Smith. Unapologetically sweaty slayers are better value than anonymous dingle-berries in masks, the intensity of iconic sleazoid savages like Spinell's Frank Zito, and Worth's creepily curb crawling, dementedly cackling stalker remain absolutely undiminished. Built like Sherman Tank, Worth's powerhouse babe-snuffer is an eminently watchable, evilly charismatic beast. Teen Campfire slashers, while goofily entertaining, are tame in comparison to the sleazier, torn from the smuttier tabloids, suburban psychodramas, luridly maintaining their darker, Grindhouse edge.

The scintillating solo scenes with the bare-chested and Batso Smith are magnetically psycho-slasher 101! He's impotent, rabidly lustful, with daddy/mommy issues, warped by religious ideation, power-obsessed, and a recidivist Peeping Tom, Kirk Smith is my idea of a fun date! The brutal climax between the cop and Smith is a doozie, you can tell he would snap Meyers back like a stale breadstick, Worth giving a credibly physical performance, appearing quite legitimately unhinged! Do I believe Kurt Smith effectively pulls off the prodigiously barrel-chested, conspicuously high-waisted Jean look? Well, yes! Yes! I do!!! he makes it work for him, creating a considerably more memorable aesthetic than a boiler suit and a hockey mask! Sadly, we won't see the bravura likes of Spinell and Worth again, which is all the more reason to actively cherish dynamite sleaze like the original 'Maniac' and 'Don't Answer The Phone'.