VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

lazarillo This movie is indeed an incoherent mess, but it's so weird in its very concept that I can't believe it is merely an exercise in incompetence (despite the bad reviews and the "Alan Smithee" directorial credit). But neither is it one of those annoying, would-be "cult" films that tries very self-consciously to be "weird". It is UNIQUELY weird, which is the mark of a TRUE cult film, even if it obviously doesn't have any kind of a cult following.It starts with a strange detective following an escaped mental patient who is driving a white van (shades of producer Mustapha Akkad's most famous movie). The mental patient stops to bloodlessly stab his ex-wife to death while she's sitting on someone's porch with their infant son. The dying women gives the infant to a ditsy teenager, who has just been performing a mime routine at the birthday party of a cranky old man next door. The ditsy teen gets a ride home with her very cute friend (Michelle Little), who doesn't seem to notice she is now carrying an infant. The friend is pretty weird herself--she constantly eavesdrops on people with a directional microphone and she has a pet hobo named "Norman" sleeping in the back of her flat-bed pickup truck (a "Crazy Ralph" type given to strange, philosophical soliloquies). Rounding out the cast is the cute girl's would-be boyfriend, who rides around on a motorcycle with a female mannequin in the sidecar, and a couple--a guy named "Cowboy" and a blonde girl--who are frequently playing cards and having sex, sometimes doing both at the same time. Eventually this kinda turns into a slasher movie as the killer comes after his newborn son, but a very bizarre one featuring astral projection and the Egyptian god of nature. . .The most recognizable actor here might be the busty Debbisue Vorhees who played "Jason's" most gratuitously naked murder victim in "Friday the 13th Part V". She has a similarly perfunctory role in this as a casual friend of lead, who, while waiting for her friend to come home, strips down to her panties for a quick dip in the pool for no apparent reason, and is subsequently murdered. (It's not a much of a part, but I doubt anyone will complain). It's also nice to see Brioni Ferrell, who was memorable in Roger Corman's "Student Nurses", but never did much after that. She plays the mother of the ditsy girl, and is usually clad in a skimpy bikini for reasons that have nothing really to do with the plot. There are more boobs than blood in this one (but not really enough of either), and the action comes to a dead halt several times for a synchronized New Wave dance routine or some other weirdness. It probably won't appeal much to hardcore slasher fans, but I actually kinda liked it for some reason. . .

Coventry Don't make the same mistake I did, please… If some person, whether it's a good buddy or a complete stranger, ever tells you not to watch this film, then take the advice and DON'T WATCH THIS FILM! "Appointment with Fear" easily ranks in the top 3 most retarded movies ever made and there's more than one reason why it ended up being directed under the pseudonym of "Alan Smithee". The basic premise is imbecile to begin with, not one dialogue in the entire stupid script makes any sense, and – despite being labeled as horror – it's completely gore-free and without tension. Worst of all are the insufferable characters, which give you the impression that this whole film-project had to be one giant lame and very unfunny joke. Allow me to introduce some of them: The 'hero' is a cop who wears suits that already went out of fashion in the 1930's and he has the strange habit of setting his own car on fire by accident. The female lead is a teenager who allows bums to live in the back of her pick-up truck and, as some kind of hobby, she monitors random people's conversations with a giant (and not very discrete) microphone. Her best friend likes to paint her face blue for no reason and she also give mime-shows to her senile grandparents. The heroine's boyfriend, to finish with, is a long-haired loser who keeps a modeling dummy in the sidecar of his motorcycle… Why? Because it's cool, of course! The "plot" revolves on a crazy killer who's in a coma but at the same time he walks around killing people whilst looking for his baby-boy son. He's supposed to be an Egyptian Demigod, even though he looks like an ordinary idiot. The whole thing is slow and every newly introduced sub plot goes nowhere real fast. The music is horrible; crappy 80's dancing is shamelessly used as padding and even the brief nudity-flashes are boring. Oh, and did I mention it's entirely gore-free? What a total piece of crap!

Vomitron_G I recently found a copy of this film on video at a video-store which was selling ex-rentals. I instantly remembered the cover (which was kind of cool and not shown here on IMDb - It was drawn by E. Sciotti who did the artwork for DEMONS, PHENOMENA, GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE, NEON MANIACS,...) and the title from the days when I was an 11-year old kid. It also read on the cover "From the man who brought you HALLOWEEN - Moustapha Akkad presents". So, I guess any fan of horror-movies would give this one a chance, no? Well, was I in for a surprise...The storyline: A dying woman, sitting on a porch in broad daylight, hands over her baby to an unsuspecting teenager asking her to protect it from her husband... who's lying in a coma in a mental institution. The teenager and her friends decide to go to this villa (to party, what else for) while being tracked down by the husband's döppelganger (emerging out of his sleep using some astral-projection or something)Does this sound cool to you? Well, it's not. While this could be the premise of a more or less original supernatural slasher movie, instead you get bored to death, real slowly and painful.The characters are all stupid, retarded or just plain weird. Even the baby looks like a mongloïd (so it's very funny when someone says "Oh, he's so beautiful") There's also an old bum with mental issues who lives in the trunk of a car. The detective, Kowalski, who tries to track down the husband/forestking/demi-god/döppelganger/killer(dig this?) has almost nothing to do. He always arrives too late at the scene of the crime, always sets fire to his car with his cigarettes (which is actually kinda funny and a good excuse to insert a car-explosion in the plot) and doesn't even save the day at the end of the movie. But he IS the best actor of the whole cast.Then there's the villain. Who does even less than nothing. He's supposed to be an Egyptian Demi-God or something, but he has absolutely no special power whatsoever (except the fact that he can't be killed by bullets or fire). Most of the time he's standing in the dark, waiting, walking around or just sitting and contemplating. But he does carry a knife and crashes through a window (most exciting scene of the movie). But, face it, nobody crashes through a window like Jason Voorhees does!I think there's a bodycount of five in the movie, but all of the killings are offscreen (yes, total rip-off). Or maybe at one point you see something rolling over the ground for approximately 1/3 second. I think that was supposed to be a decapitated head.Needless to say the production-values were rather low on this movie. But they did manage to hire some dancers to do this hilarious 80's dance-scene with awesome choreography ("Why?", I kept asking myself, "Why?") How they eventually kill the villain, I will not give away in this review, but I can say that the dance-scene seemed to have a purpose after all... (curious? Rent the movie)Oh, did I tell you about the completely unnecessary subplot about a traumatic experience of teenager Heather, involving a baby and a bathtub, which she expresses through her paintings (watch the almost incomprehensable flashbacks)One more thing I liked about this movie was the mesmerizing look of the plastic tree with the white light coming out of it, symbolizing everything our godly villain stands for (I guess).I almost forgot: this movie has some scenes in it which contain gratuitous nudity (but what do you want, it has teenagers in it)OK, enough said! Except for the fact that Moustapha Akkad wasn't even on the credits of this film (only a production-assistant named Malek Akkad was mentioned in the end-credits). He must have had the common sense to realize he didn't want to have his name linked with this picture. A shame the promotional staff used it anyway.The only good thing about this really bad movie I now proudly own is the nice cover by E.Sciotti. So for all you good horror-movie lovers out there: A year before this movie got released, another movie about a supernatural killer which emerges out of dreams was made: A NIGHTMARE ON ELMSTREET. So go see that one, or any episode of the HALLOWEEN movies or , hell, you can even check out THE GUARDIAN if you like your horror mixed up with mystical nanny-villains, trees and babies. But avoid APPOINMENT WITH FEAR at all costs, unless you have the right sense of humour or like to be amazed by a movie that set new standards for unlogical film-making in 1985.

GoreMonger I was looking through the "Videos For Sale" bin at a local Blockbuster and came across this title. I saw that it was produced by Moustapha Akkad and it sparked my interest. I'm a huge fan of the Halloween series, to which Akkad has contributed greatly. On that basis I decided to buy it. The most exciting part of this movie is the ending credits. Only then do you know that the torture session is over. That's also when the true horror of the film set in for me..........I actually paid money for this garbage. Avoid this title at ALL cost. Moustapha Akkad should be ashamed to have his name associated with this title.