It took filmmaker Robin Hardy over a dozen years to follow up his well loved cult flick "The Wicker Man". And judging by the results here, one might be inclined to think that he turned out to be a one-trick pony. Adapting the novel "Goosefoot", he spins the yarn of young Patricia Teeling (Moira Harris, a.k.a. Mrs. Gary Sinise), a simple Irish country lass who moves away from the family farm to work as a teacher in Dublin. She is aggressively romanced by American expatriate author Danny Sullivan (Timothy Bottoms, "The Last Picture Show", "The Paper Chase"). Meanwhile, a serial killer who clearly loves to hear themselves talk is phoning unfortunate young women, then murdering them."The Fantasist" is ultimately hurt by being overly silly and incredibly trite. It's set up way too obviously to create much suspense, or derive much pleasure from it. Also, Danny's attempts to be quirky and charming just come off as goofy a lot of the time. Bottoms is clearly having fun with this character, but Danny's shtick wears out its welcome early on. The story is plodding and doesn't offer much interest, but at least the distinctive Irish flavor helps to keep it watchable, along with decent work by Ms. Sinise, who's reasonably appealing. Christopher Cazenove ("Eye of the Needle", "A Knight's Tale") is pretty good as the inspector working the case, and the supporting cast (including John Kavanagh as Patricia's co-worker Robert Foxley and Mick Lally as the hearty Uncle Lar) is solid. Effective location shooting and the music by Stanislas Syrewicz further assist in making this as watchable as it is.For those interested, Ms. Sinise does do some nudity late in the film.Five out of 10.

Moira Harris is a country girl who moves to the corrupted urban pit called Dublin. She has a teaching job but we don't see much of it. Her main interest seems to be in finding a suitable mate.She doesn't have much luck. The first man who asks her out on a date is a queer duck. It's her Headmaster of English. He's older than she is and he ought to be stable, if a bit boring, but instead he gargles his wine while tasting it at a fancy restaurant, then, when he drives her home, asks if he can rub her tummy before she goes in. The habit traces back to his mother. ("I was lucky. She died when I was ten, before I could outgrow her.") So much for Robert the Headmaster.Then she meets a visiting American writer in a neighboring apartment, Timothy Bottoms. He's charming at first, one of those Yanks with a sentimental attachment to the land of his ancestors. But, if anything, he's more screwed up than the Headmaster. He pulls childish stunts like telling her to hide a coin in her underwear and letting him dowse for it. The charm quickly morphs into rage when he thinks he's been mistreated. Finally he blows his cork entirely, calls her all sorts of filthy names, and throws her into a thicket. So much for Danny Sullivan.But through all this, by means of a curious set of circumstances, she has met a police inspector who limps. Somebody has been calling the young girls of Dublin and whispering dirty nothings into their ears. Not VERY dirty. Not vulgar really, but insinuating, with an occasional physiological trope like Mallarme. "I envy the slab of pavement that bears the imprint of your foot." THEIR slashers are more pretentious than ours. Some of his listeners, he tracks down and stabs to death, leaving their naked bodies in an odd posture. One of the victims happens to be a neighbor of Moira Harris, and she's taken by the polite but rather intense police inspector who interrogates her, played by my erstwhile co-star, Christopher Cazenove. "Oh, Inspector," she gushes to herself, "your breath doesn't smell like pipe tobacco but like basil." Harris has an unanticipated encounter with the Dublin slasher, after which, instead of running to the nearest police station, she takes the ferry for England so that the utterly absurd climax can take place in the Irish Sea and the perp can fall screaming into the icy water, leaving Harris behind, holding a piece of him in her arms.Just a few impressions. One is that there is nudity and cursing going on here and even simulated coitus, which tells me that there must have been big changes in Irish cinema since I was last in a Dublin theater, watching an American movie from which the words d*** and h**** had been excised. Second, Moira Harris has large expressive features that can turn in a twinkling from joy to fright with only a minimal muscular rearrangement. She has one of those rolling walks too, of the kind that used to be attributed to sailors. Lindsay Crouse and Lee Remick had it too. She's quite attractive without being stunningly beautiful. The script by Robin Hardy is commercial trash combining sex, violence, and romance. The best performance is that of Mick Lally as Uncle Lar. His impression of a drunken guy peeling a boiled potato is peerless. And Hitchcock would have appreciated the stomach-churning story he tells during the act.This is one of those rare movies that should have just dropped the sex and violence and concentrated on the characters. Instead it looks like a poor imitation of an already exhausted American genre movie.

I stumbled across this relatively obscure film on a satellite channel the other day, and was eagerly anticipating an enjoyable experience, having been a big fan of director Robin Hardy's previous film (the Wicker Man).95 minutes later, I was disappointed, although the film does have some redeeming features.I consider The Wicker Man to be a classic of its type, and certain aspects of that film are carried over into this one - the haunting music, the atmospheric locations, and especially the suppressed eroticism. Also the final twist at the end. But having said that, this film does come across as a pale imitation of its predecessor.Due to the appalling treatment that was meted out to The Wicker Man by the film industry powers, Robin Hardy retired from the business for over 10 years, and boy does it show here. Some of the editing is appallingly choppy, the characters' dialog is at times incredibly trite, and some of the scenes just don't gel. Examples of the latter are the initial murder, where the victim appears to offer no resistance to the knife wielding assailant, and the relationship between Moira Harris and Timothy Bottoms, which in one scene has her berating him for making pervy phone calls to his wife. then in next scene she discovers his wife's murdered body, and in the very next scene has her defending him aginst police suspicion? Duh???Another scene that is particularly laughable is the night club scene where Harris and Bottoms meet. The moment when Timothy Bottoms raises his fists to the Mr. Halitosis character almost had me laughing out loud.Moreover, there is virtually no mystery as to who the main pervy phone caller is, as the voice is easily identifiable as one of the main characters in the film.However, it's not all bad news. As in The Wicker Man, there is an air of Catholic sexual repression which pervades the whole story, and is handled on the whole very well. I'm not Irish or Catholic, but I found it believable and not just because it gave the film an excuse to show a few bare breasts.It's just a shame there couldn't have been a bit more suspense to go with it.

Although nowhere near as good as "The Wicker Man", Robin Hardy has made a good stab at penetrating the Irish slasher genreAn interesting plot with some oddball characterisation and great scenery. The Dublin shots bring back memories of a pre-Tiger city. A motley crew of familiar and somewhat unpleasant actors [especially Ronan Wilmot and Jim Bartley] add to the frenetic atmosphere.Definitely worth 95 mins of your time.7/10