Theme Song: This entire soundtrack is synthed-out madness from Tandy-Morgan. David Morgan was in the ELO touring band in the ‘80s and Richard Tandy was ELO’s main keyboardist. They teamed up for a single and a concept album in the mid-to-late ‘80s. Morgan has the main music credit for Distortions, but IMDb lists all soundtrack credits as Tandy-Morgan, including this song, which they released as a single.
“Action”
It’s peak synth-pop made by white men, and somewhat enjoyable.
“Run Little Girl”
This is another in the same vein.
Then there’s a lot of synth workouts. Look, it’s all just a lot of synth. It’s a little overwhelming.
Social Context: Distortions has no real social context or connections aside from being arousing to insurance claims adjusters and auditors.
Summary: Poor Steve Railsback is severely underutilized in this one. I was hoping for a totally unhinged stalker, but, alas, he’s just a boring insurance claims investigator.
But I’m getting ahead of things. So, a guy named Jason wakes up in the middle of the night, does bicep curls, and then goes and sees a male prostitute. The next morning, his wife Amy (Olivia Hussey) gets word he’s died in a fiery crash.
That’s just enough time for her estranged aunt Margot (Piper Laurie), who hated Jason, to swoop in and invite Amy to come live at her palatial estate. But then a bunch of spooky shit happens and Amy sees ominous men lurking around every corner, falls over a bunch of shit, and starts going insane.
Eventually after a bunch of syth stabs and ominous shadows, it’s revealed that Aunt Margot is trying to drive her insane so she can get the insurance money, but Steve Railsback is on the scene to linger around and sort of smile.
Joke’s on Steve, though, because it’s actually Paul (the dead husband faking his death), but Steve also knows about that, and at this point who really cares. There was even a Scooby-Doo style mask tear-off reveal toward the end.
Worth Mentioning:
– Directed by Armand Mastroianni (He Knows You’re Alone, Cameron’s Closet)./
– Written by the prolific B-movie actor and writer John Goff.
– It’s takes so damn long to get going with the endless scenes of Amy going crazy, that by the time you get to all of the double and triple crossing, you’ve lost interest.
Poster and Box Art: Nice photo collage that definitely makes things look a lot more exciting than they are.
