Somewhere near the climax of this film, the killer states - and I quote - "I'm sorry, but there's no place for imperfection in this world". Well, if this were true, "The Spiral Staircase" itself never would have seen the light of day. That makes, I guess, the moral of this story: let's all try to be a little more tolerant and nicer to each other. Although another moral could be: if you need to recover from a mental trauma, have someone try to strangle you.
"The Spiral Staircase" is a remake of the sublime 1946 suspense classic with the same name. Or maybe it's a completely separate adaptation of the same source novel by Ethel Lina White, I'm not really sure of that. Fact remains that, of the two films, this 1976 version is definitely the weakest link, and a disappointingly tame 70s thriller altogether. The opening sequences is more than promising, though. A blind but stylish blond woman is rudely executed in a tunnel whilst walking her guidance dog. We hear from the police she's already the fifth victim of a sadist serial killer who exclusively targets disabled women. At this point, I was still anticipating a phenomenal thriller. Why shouldn't I? Everything seemed to be there, including a great cast (Jacqueline Bisset, Christopher Plummer, John Philip Law, Sam Wanamaker, the ravishing Gayle Hunnicutt), a more than talented director (Peter Collinson of "The Italian Job", "Open Season" and "Straight on till Morning"), a shivers-guaranteed premise, terrific settings and conditions (stormy night, big mansion full of suspects) ...
So then, what went wrong? I honestly don't know, in fact. What follows after the good intro is a long and dull hour without any action, suspense or emotion whatsoever. When the bodies do eventually start piling up, the murders are tame, bloodless and working towards a predictable finale.
