cult film freak: SUSAN HOGAN & LISA LANGLOIS SUFFER JOHN HUSTON'S 'PHOBIA'

John Colicos & Susan Hogan in Phobia 1980 Rates: ***

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 when partner David Soul moved to SALEM'S LOT, he's a seemingly helpful psychologist using a face-your-fear approach on his hospitalized patients as 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 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.