Star Time

An exceedingly odd first feature by writer-director-producer Alexander Cassini about an infantile young man (Young Elvis’s Michael St. Gerard) who’s lured away from committing suicide after his favorite TV sitcom is canceled by a fatherly show-biz type (John P. Ryan) who persuades him that he can become a TV star by committing gratuitous mass murders. A more maternal and law-abiding response is provided by a social worker (Maureen Teefy). Played half as arty allegory, half as satiric comedy, and generally as some species of midnight madness, this gaga independent item is most daring in refusing to focus on the violence that’s its subject, while getting us to think plenty about what it means. Recommended (1992). (JR)

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