User Reviews

This certainly is not a great thriller (and it never aspired to be), but if you like low-budget B-movies, then you're likely to agree that it isn't THAT bad, either. I happen to think that all whodunits are inherently interesting if they're executed with at least a minimum level of competence, and "Phobia" was directed by the legendary John Huston himself! Far from his best work, yes, but he managed to keep my attention. The "surprise" ending, though, is predictable. (**)

If some movie magazine ever comes up with the bright idea of putting together a list entitled "the top 100 most idiotic ways to spoil a movie", than the number 1 spot is undoubtedly reserved for "simply reading the tagline for John Huston's Phobia!". Seriously, if you are considering to watch this film and you haven't yet paid any attention to reading the tagline, well then … DON'T! I mean, guessing the denouement of the film isn't exactly quantum physics, but the stupid tagline just gives away the end twist. Other than that "Phobia" honestly wasn't as bad as I was led to believe, in fact. I almost exclusively read reviews and user comments stating that "Phobia" is a terribly boring thriller effort and undeniably the absolute low point in John Huston's overall magnificent career. Well okay, in spite of all the warnings, I still desperately wanted to see it for two reasons. First and foremost, it might be an inferior John Huston film but it's still remains a John Huston film and they should always be worth checking out! Besides, this is the only horror movie Huston directed, even though he starred in a couple of weird Italian ones like "Tentacles" and "The Visitor". Secondly, and this is truly a personal weakness of mine, the movie poster very much appealed to me. The simply image of a face, half covered in darkness and half depicting people's death struggles is already a lot scarier than the entire content of most other thrillers.

In all honesty, I'm really glad that I took the effort of tracking down "Phobia" and I would definitely encourage other people not to base your judgment on the negative reviews. This isn't a terrific thriller, obviously, mainly due to the slow pacing and continuous predictability of the script, but it nevertheless contains a few good ideas and even a handful of genuinely suspenseful and macabre moments. I found the basic subject matter to be very interesting and full of horrific potential, maybe partly because I have a couple of bizarre and inexplicable phobias myself. Paul Michael Glaser (yes yes, the original Starsky!) plays the acclaimed but slightly controversial psychiatrist Dr. Peter Ross. With the support of his hospital, he started a project to help a test group of five patients get over their various phobias including heights, crowded places, drowning and snakes. Dr Ross' methods are unorthodox and even dangerous, as he literally forces his patients to confront their fears and pushes them quite far into them. Shortly after having received the media's attention, Ross' patients start dying under mysterious circumstances and each one according to their own phobia.

I've been watching horror practically my entire life and I really think that there aren't enough movies that deal with people's fears. "Phobia" is not a great or highly memorable effort, but at least it's decent and attempts to thrive on slow-brooding tension instead of on cheap shocks and gore. The film admittedly has too many shortcomings, like the clichéd selection of phobias and the truly disappointing climax, but several sequences are properly elaborated and the wholesome is definitely worth watching.

Paul Michael "Starsky" Glaser is Dr. Peter Ross in this routine psycho-thriller, which is treated as *just* a pay check movie for the majority of the talent assembled. Certainly nobody brings any real passion or creativity to this script. The script is really not so hot, which is too bad considering that some of the writing talent involved included Ronald Shusett ("Alien") and Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster ("Horror of Dracula"). Overall, the film is lacking in suspense and a truly good story, although the idea of mental patients led to their doom through their own phobias *could* have been better realized.

Ross is overseeing a program in which his patients are forced to confront images capturing their anxieties (heights, snakes, etc.). Then, one of them is blown to kingdom come by an explosive device left inside Ross' own apartment, and this leads to a rash of murders as the cops on the case (John Colicos, "The Changeling", and Kenneth Welsh, "The Day After Tomorrow") cast a suspicious eye on everyone in the therapy group.

Glaser is miscast in the lead and not very good, although the presence of Colicos & Welsh, and the appealing Susan Hogan ("The Brood") as Ross' girlfriend does help matters. Colicos and Welsh play "bad cops" who go out of their way to intimidate the nebbishy Henry (David Bolt, "Videodrome"). Co-starring are Patricia Collins ("Lost and Found"), David Eisner and Lisa Langlois from "Happy Birthday to Me", Robert O'Ree (David Cronenbergs' "Rabid"), Alexandra Stewart ("Frantic"), Neil Vipond ("Kings and Desperate Men"), and Marian Waldman (Mrs. Mac in the original "Black Christmas").

All of this is adequately entertaining at best, leading to a supposed "twist" ending that isn't exactly hard to figure out. Even this finale is executed with a certain lack of zeal.

There *are* worse thrillers out there, to be sure, but people may wonder why Huston would spend (some would say waste) his time filming such a script. At least his name in the credits ensures a definite curiosity value.

Five out of 10.

A psychiatrist's (Paul Michael Glaser) patients are being killed using their own phobias. Who's doing it...and why? Well...the tag line of the movie gives away the entire plot! I caught this mess back in 1981 on cable TV LATE at night. I watched it because I was bored and love horror movies. Well...it WAS horrible! For one thing Glaser (who can be good) walks through his role like he's on Valium. The murders aren't even well-done and the identity of the killer is very obvious from the very beginning.

You really got to wonder why John Huston picked this to direct. He's good at dramas--not psychological horror films. Whenever he tried to direct something different it was always a disaster. Remember--he directed "Annie" which is considered one of the worst musicals put on film. In this one he seems unsure of how to shot a suspenseful scene or pace the film. This is dragged out and very very dull.

This is basically a forgotten film--let's hope it stays that way! Even Glaser said this was terrible. A 1 all the way.

One word. Describes everything. So does boring, stupid, and ridiculous. I can't believe John Huston was involved in this. I can't believe Starsky was involved in this, I guess he was looking for work when the show ended. Of course, he did go on to direct Kazaam, which also was boring, stupid, and ridiculous. I want the 90+ minutes spent watching this back. I rented this because the cover art and back synopsis looked interesting. Trust me, its not.

The late, great John Huston apparently went on a bender and woke up in Canada where they plopped him in the director's chair to helm a tax-shelter "psychological" horror flick remarkably similar to "Schizoid", a slightly better Klaus Kinski vehicle released the same year. An unorthodox psychiatrist finds that his patients are being murdered, ironically in ways that play to their greatest phobias. So who could be the killer? Well, I won't spoil it, but all you have to do is looking at the frickin' tag line.

Besides being generic and dull, the main problem here is the male lead. Canadians do tend to have an inferiority complex sometimes, but I find it hard to believe that they couldn't have found a greater thespian talent in that entire country than "Hutch" (or was it "Starsky"--I get confused?). Paul Michael Glaser gives a central performance that is every bit as compelling as paint drying. As for Huston, this fortunately wasn't his swan-song--he ended his life with an impressive troika of films, "Under the Volcano", "Prizzi's Honor", and "The Dead". This was merely an unfortunate misstep for him.

The only good thing I can say about this (and I'm really clutching for straws here), is that, also like "Schizoid", it does have a surprising and uncharacteristic nude scene by a young lovely of the Canadian tax shelter era. With "Schizoid" it was Donna Wilkes; here it is Lisa Langlois, who was in Claude Chabrol's "Blood Relatives" and any number of Canadian films better than this (maybe THAT was the whole reason I watched this years back--who knows?). Other than that small favor though its eminently forgettable

I do say this with a heavy heart, because I love John Huston. He is a terrific director, and I loved some of his acting performances too(ie. Chinatown). However, Phobia was just awful and didn't work on any level. In fact, out of the John Huston-directed movies I have seen(which is a lot), Phobia is by far his worst. Much worse than Victory(or Escape to Victory), which for me was quite enjoyable despite being silly, predictable and clichéd. Much worse than The Unforgiven, despite one or two scenes that could have been better thought-out and a miscast it does have a talented ensemble cast, looks gorgeous and was quite interesting. And also much worse than Annie, granted Huston's direction wasn't the best it could have been, but Annie is a childhood favourite, has marvellous songs and some great performances, plus I think it has a lot of charm and doesn't deserve to be down there among the worst musicals not like Xanadu, Can't Stop the Music, Grease 2 and Mame.

About Phobia, when I watched it, I found very little about it that was good. Huston's direction is not good here, out of his movies Phobia is his most ineptly directed movie. It is a shame, because when Huston is good he is just terrific, but I could tell that his heart wasn't in it. I could also say the same for Paul Michael Glaser, I agree he can be good but that is not the case here. He doesn't seem interested at all in this movie and literally sleepwalks through his role. I also thought the look of the film was shoddy, the camera angles are slip-shod and the lighting is very dull even in the less-dark scenes.

The dialogue is poor and unfocused, while Andre Gagnon's music is forgettable and drab. The story is also dreadfully constructed, very drawn out and uninteresting with more-laughable-than-shocking murders, countless contrivances and an ending that you could smell a mile off. The characters lack any credibility, especially the culprit who I knew the identity of far too soon, while the sluggish pace alone kills this movie.

All in all, an awful movie and the only movie of John Huston's actually that I dislike intensely. 1/10 Bethany Cox

During the 1970s, it was not an uncommon sight to have maverick Hollywood director John Huston slumming it out as an actor in often desperate, generic and star-studded international productions like TENTACLES (1977; whose fairly recent viewing did no favors to my childhood memories of it) and THE VISITOR (1979; which, surprisingly, turned out to be a far more satisfying watch than I could have ever imagined); this he did, no doubt, to obtain finance for the more personal of his projects as a director but, after WISE BLOOD (1979) – one of his most acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful latter-day films – he was forced to take the 'safe' course even behind the camera as he followed this in quick succession with three totally routine and impersonal assignments that belied his creative involvement. The first of these was the Canadian horror-thriller under review that boasted some interesting credentials: writers Jimmy Sangster (the doyen of Hammer Films' scribes), Gary (RAW MEAT) Sherman and Ronald (ALIEN) Shusett (who probably sold off their original story because they were contemporaneously shooting the superior "Video Nasty", DEAD AND BURIED) and actors – TV star Paul Michael Glaser and Canadians John Colicos and Alexandra Stewart.

Glaser had just finished his four-year stint as "Starsky" in the popular cop series and this was his first (and, as it happened, only) shot at the title of a Hollywood leading man in the movies; he had previously only had supporting roles in films like FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (1971) and, after this non-starter, he would concentrate his efforts on directing – mostly for TV but also one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's more notable star vehicles, the Sci-Fi actioner THE RUNNING MAN (1987). Glaser plays a shrink with a novel and radical technique of confronting phobics head-on with their fears in his 'treatment' room but, given the experimental nature of it, his patients so far are 5 convicted criminals. Before long, they start getting knocked off: agoraphobic Stewart, traumatized by her 'cure' of spending some time in a densely-populated train station, runs to find comfort in Glaser's apartment – only to be blown away by a booby-trapped drawer(!); a nerdy war veteran, suspected by bullying Detective Colicos of this foul play, goes nuts in the police station and dashes off to a place high up in a nearby building site to test his acrophobia by leaping to his death (despite the last-minute counsel of Glaser – who is forever being interrupted during his extra-curricular activities to tick off another patient off his list!); a frigid girl, subjected to footage of a gang rape by the friendly doctor, needs to wash off that filthy feeling presto and is, inevitably, drowned in the bathtub by a pair of gloved hands; a claustrophobic punkish youth flips out at the news of the latest murder and, eventually, gets crushed in an elevator shaft at the apartment block where Glaser's girlfriend lives; a colored ophidiophobic (a fear with which I admit to be afflicted myself) is bitten by a rattlesnake – despite having been made to finally touch a reptile only a few days before.

Despite the would-be juicy roster of red herring victim-suspects, there are only two viable suspects: one being Glaser's former girlfriend, a fellow psychiatrist who might have every reason to see his new technique fail but, when during a conversation with her replacement in Glaser's empty office, it transpires that the latter was saddled with a guilt complex following his younger sister's death in childhood, the stage is set for a crazed Glaser proudly confessing his part in the murders to his girl and shooting himself in the head right in front of her! The film is often thought of as Huston's directorial nadir but, actually PHOBIA is not as unwatchably bad as some reviewers would have us believe: quite simply, it is just too predictable for a whodunnit, too tame for a slasher movie and Glaser too detached ("magnificently" so, in fact, as per the script!) for the audience to care about his fate. For the record, this viewing came as another belated tribute to the late Jimmy Sangster and, apparently, the premise is awfully similar to the contemporaneous Klaus Kinski shocker, SCHIZOID (which I am not familiar with)...but I did watch Richard Rush's even more maligned COLOR OF NIGHT (1994) fairly recently and, all in all, that oversexed later film was an understandably more enjoyable ride than the Huston film proved to be!

Fear of something is called a "phobia". This movie takes it to a whole new level. Paul Michael Glaser, fresh off "Starsky & Hutch" plays a psychiatrist, who uses a new method to treat his patients with certain fears. When they get the treatment, they would try to conquer their fears, one step at a time. However, they would end up dead. They would have their own fears used against them. The victims aren't innocent. They are criminals. John Huston is known for his work. This movie may not have been a big hit, but I respect the fact that he is a very good man behind the stuff he does. There's no need for putting down the movie. It could be a cult classic one day. I can guarantee you that! It could have added more intrigue though. 2 out of 5 stars

A phobia is an irrational fear of something that drives a person to avoid it at all costs. Dr. Peter Rose (Paul Michael Glaser) had five patients with phobias: heights, public places, snakes, men, and an unknown. Some of these things can and should be feared in the right situation, but it is the extreme fear that makes it a phobia, such as seeing a snake on T.V. and having a panic attack.

Dr. Rose is practicing a new and totally unproven form of therapy he called "Implosion Therapy." The idea is that he would force his patients to face their phobias head on to break them of their phobia. I think it's more of immersion than implosion. Implosion connotes that something burst inward or collapse upon itself. That's not what was going on. He was immersing the patients in an environment with that which they feared. Like putting a claustrophobic in a closet.

Problems started when his first patient was killed. To make matters worse a second, then third patient was killed. Who was the killer was the question. Was it another patient, was it his coworker and ex-lover, or was it the doctor himself? Surely, any surviving patients were going to have death phobia at the rate Dr. Rose's patients were being bumped off.

I liked this movie, the pacing and the dialogue. It was a murder mystery with plausible deaths, meaning that how they died was plausible. Throughout all of the events Dr. Peter stayed cool and detached even. It seemed like the best and most effective way to handle the deaths so that he could be of use to his other patients, but maybe there was something deeper to it.

I think this movie is slightly underrated. In no way is it a great film, but for a low budget thriller it's okay. It's interesting to see the different kinds of phobias and the film does leave you guessing as to what's really going on. The storyline is a little slow and can drag on at times, but there's also enough in there to keep you interested. The filming is of a poorer quality; I was watching the blue ray version and it's still very fuzzy; my black and white films have better quality then this one. If your a big fan of lower budget horror films then why not give this one a try! If your looking for something scary and extremely entertaining, I wouldn't recommend this film.

When I stumbled upon this 1980 movie titled "Phobia", of course I opted to sit down and watch it, as it was a movie that I hadn't already seen.

Writers Lew Lehman, Jimmy Sangster, Peter Bellwood, Gary Sherman, Ronald Shusett, Gladys Hill, Dan O'Bannon and Larry Spiegel put together a script that wasn't all that entertaining or interesting. I am a bit perplexed how so many writers collectively could manage to deliver a script that weak.

I have to admit that I was expecting a bit more from the movie, as it was listed as a thriller/horror, but this proved to be more of a thriller drama with crime elements. So it was quite different from what I was expecting.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with actor Kenneth Welsh. The acting performances in the movie were good.

I found "Phobia" to be a somewhat bland and boring movie, and it didn't really appeal much to my liking in movies.

My rating of director John Huston's 1980 movie lands on a three out of ten stars.

This has the reputation of being John Huston's worst film, and it's not even that close. I, however, cannot stand The Kremlin Letter, and Phobia's dull, nonsensical, and overwrought paint-by-numbers approach to psychological thriller mechanics in the early days of the slasher genre may be ultimately stupid and not terribly thrilling, but it's not the inanity that was The Kremlin Letter, at least. John Huston had a real problem with thrillers, pretty obviously not knowing at all how they actually worked, but at least Phobia feels like a thriller, even if it's never actually thrilling.

Dr. Peter Ross (Paul Michael Glaser) is doing some really radical things with patients with phobias: making them face their fears. Ooooo. Part of the problem with the film is that the whole central conceit is this phobia business, and a good number of the people I'm not sure what their phobias even are. The obvious ones are Henry Owen (David Bolt) who is afraid of heights and Bubba (Robert O'Ree) who is afraid of snakes, because actual time is dedicated to them. Barbara Grey (Alexandra Stewart) is agoraphobic, and I only know that because they say it outright. But Laura (Lisa Langlois) and Johnny (David Eisner)? I have no idea.

The other problem is that it's all too ridiculous. All five are actually prisoners with violent pasts that Ross has convinces the authorities to just let loose, up to and including freedom of the outside world. That's required because of plot and red herring reasons when a bomb blows up Barbara in Ross's apartment after an experiment when he sent her to go alone across town, through the subway, as an experiment, but he went to play in a hockey game instead of staying at his apartment because he is just the worst doctor in the world. This sets off a series of implausible events where his patients begin dying in weird ways tied to their phobias (Barbara isn't afraid of filing cabinets, though, so the movie can't even commit to the concept from the beginning).

The problem with all of this is ultimately a problem of tension. There is none. What's the central issue at play? That one of the patients, that Ross has allowed to run around free despite all being guilty of violent crime, might be out to kill him, except we can tell pretty easily that none of them actually have any motive to do it. In fact, there's no effort at all to try and even establish a motive. It's just presented by the police detective Barnes (John Colicos) and then pursued except for the fact that, again, not one of them is actually suspicious. Heck, there isn't even an effort to establish time and place on these people before suspecting them. This makes the bulk of the film surprisingly inert.

And yet, the actual editing and filmmaking effort resembles a thriller. I'm fairly convinced if Huston had made The Kremlin Letter or The Mackintosh Man like he made Phobia, both would have actually felt like thrillers. Phobia's problem isn't the filmmaking, though. There's a moment that crosscuts between Barnes interrogating Henry while Ross going through a session with Bubba by presenting him with a harmless snake to deal with. It doesn't make any real sense why the two are intercut, but the way they are intercut is the sort of thing that thrillers do. It's designed to increase tension, perhaps draw parallels, and to make things feel more exciting. It doesn't because the two aren't actually connected at all, but the effort is there.

The actual resolution is so out of the blue and silly Freudianism as to feel more like parody than an actual effort at a thriller conclusion. I'll admit to being wrong, thinking the film one level of stupid and predictable but without realizing that it was going to be randomly stupid in a twist that was intentionally unpredictable unless you guess blindly. The reveal at the end is so idiotic that any modicum of goodwill the film has built up over its largely uninteresting runtime, though there was one detail about the reveal that I found clever, revolving around how Henry ended up plummeting to his death. In a better written movie, that moment would have done more than made me smirk for a quick moment before returning to the fact that everyone around it was random and stupid.

There's a bit of behind the scenes trivia that Huston just went with the version of the script in the most completed state when he entered pre-production. I really get the sense that he signed on because he found the concept interesting, saw the complete disaster that had been the scriptwriting process, and just decided to get it over with. There was never going to be any saving the film without going back into the writer's room for a year, and he just wanted to get it over with. Not that Huston was above making bad decisions, especially on thrillers, but I really just get the sense that he refused to give his contractual obligations more time than required.

There's something different about Canadian-shot b-horrors and how they look, and feel...

Kind of sparsely enigmatic, lonesome and hollow, Noirish in tone... ranging from native canook David Cronenberg and sometimes imported Americans...

In this case the legendary and still hard-working John Huston, directing what resembles a violent TV-movie fitfully titled PHOBIA wherein the body count aspect flows strategically with the plot...

Starring Paul Michael Glaser right after STARSKY AND HUTCH and around the same time former partner David Soul moved to SALEM'S LOT, he's a seemingly helpful psychologist using a face-your-fear approach on his hospitalized patients...

Each of the eclectic group suffers from the same intense, specified fears that... during the best parts within an otherwise talky, by-the-numbers exploitation-horror... ultimately seals their fate... from heights to drowning to snakes...

All the while providing good roles for two lovely Canadian actresses, and is the first for 1980's scream queen Lisa Langlois (pulling a Janet Leigh but in a tub) and Glaser's love-interest, THE BROOD ingenue Susan Hogan. John Huston's PHOBIA is a mystery-thriller curbed by token investigative cop John Colicos that pays off in predictable yet twisty, entertaining death scenes...

And that, if it really were made for television and with a less famous/legendary director, just might've gotten the attention it deserved... or any at all.

At around the halfway point, I guessed who the killer was in John Huston's murder mystery Phobia, but I didn't guess what their motive was: that's because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense... some psycho-babble about punishing criminals for not overcoming their fears.

Even though the final act takes some swallowing, I still had fun with the film thanks to competent direction from double-Oscar winner John Huston and solid performances from his cast, which includes familiar TV faces Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky from Starsky and Hutch) and John Colicos (Count Baltar from Battlestar Galactica).

Glaser plays Dr. Peter Ross, who uses implosion therapy to try and cure his patients - all parolees from prison - of a range of phobias, including fear of heights, snakes, men and crowds. When one of the subjects of Ross's experiments dies in an explosion that looks as though it was meant to kill the doctor, cop Barnes (Colicos) investigates, suspecting that one of the parolees is guilty. Barnes' pool of suspects gets smaller, however, as the killer bumps them off one by one.

Huston keeps the pace lively, with fun death sequences at regular intervals (crushed by an elevator, drowning in a bath tub, fall from a high rise construction), gratuitous nudity from Lisa Langlois, and a cool car chase. At times, the film felt a lot like a giallo to me, with the unseen killer, the occasional lack of logic and the implausible motive: if you dig Italian horror, I reckon you'll find something here to enjoy as well.

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

This could have been so much better, it had a good cast and a good director but the story was clunky and in some places, really silly. My eyes rolled so hard at some of the ridiculous pop psychology being spouted they nearly went into the back of my head. If someone had bothered to do some basic research the story could have been a little better.

I know that it's supposed to be a fun little thriller/whodunnit, but the writing was lazy and there really wasn't that much character development.

If you like 80s thrillers, you might like this, but don't expect too much. It's a shame though, it could have been so much better,