The Clairvoyant / The Killing Hour (1982; Armando Mastroianni)

 Sort of a followup to Mastroianni's He Knows You're Alone, this New York City based horror thriller features Elizabeth Kemp (she's the friend of O'Heaney, with her decapitated head in a fishtank) as a sketch artist who sees a series of handcuff murders (related to pivotal pillow suffocation of a naked woman handcuffed to a bed), penciling them on paper out of some sort of "supernatural subconscious". 

Norman Parker is a wannabe standup comic whenever he can moonlight but as a detective, Larry Weeks, he keeps getting into trouble with his boss, Lieutenant Cullum (Kenneth McMillan, who'd rather be anywhere but in this movie), because he cares more about making folks laugh than solving cases. 

Kemp's Virna Nightborne is unemployed and sketching, but she knows too much due to the visions that surface out of the ether. The handcuff killer is targeting specific people for a reason later explained once all the sketches are accumulated. 

One guy swimming in a pool is pulled underwater with her ankle handcuffed to the lower rung of a steel ladder; unable to free his foot from the cuff, the swimmer drowns. Another guy, working for the electric company, is handcuffed to a steel bar while in a manhole on a street in the middle of work, electrocuted when the killer sets up a hook to a separate box giving the victim quite a jolt. The third victim hires a guy in a bar, giving him handcuffs, paying him two stacks of cash in an envelope in the restroom...the hitman fails to murder a tabloid reporter, Mac (Perry King), desperate to make it big in New York City, and later the guy who hired the hitman is knocked unconscious and handcuffed inside his building's elevator shaft, crushed by an elevator upon waking up. 

So each sketch details abstract visions of those deaths -- including the unfortunate attack on her nurse roommate pal (Barbara Quinn), who is handcuffed to her car's steering wheel by the killer after chloroforming her, placing a brick on the accelerator, with the vehicle spinning around in circles before careening into the drink -- with Mac and Weeks vying for her affections. 

It seems Mac wants to exploit her for big ratings, while Weeks is both worried for her safety and falling head over heels for her. The middle of the film seems dedicated to that tug-of-war. Virna seems to like the attention...Kemp has that blushing face, biting her lower lip as she moves her eyes away from the men wanting to charm her.

These early 80s slashers (no slashing this go-around, though there's plenty of sleaze and psychopathy) have early roles for familiar faces. This film has a skinny, mustachioed Jon Polito (Ed O'Neill's closets rival on "Modern Family"; now much more growly, thickened out, and gravel-voiced) and Joe Morton (this reliable African American actor has always been the go-to for any number of roles involving departments of authority) as McMillan's detectives assisting on the handcuff killer investigations.

I write and write seemingly endlessly on synopsis, but the film is just pedestrian in execution. It doesn't have much style or flash. I think a lot of the genre's fans expect some sizzle with the steak. But Mastroianni just sorts of directs the story very much like any television movie, except there is some nudity (the main victim all the handcuff murders link to is handcuffed naked to a bedpost, hired by the guys being killed for BDSM, when the head killer takes it too far, resulting in his paranoia and concern about being turned in to the authorities), including full frontal male and female nudity by university student models posing in art classes.

This is the Tubi poster

The frigid cold of New York City can be felt and there is something to be appreciated for all the location shooting. Perry King was all over the place in the late 70s and early 80s, with quite a lengthy career. The dialogue where King brings up his show being taped with Kemp as his guest is like a red light blinding your eyes...if this isn't mentioned then Quinn's death would be a critical plot problem. And there is an exposition dump between McMillon, Polito, and Morton laying out the entire reason behind the handcuff killings and eventual outcome of the investigations. I guess this might be recognized more as an American giallo than a slasher film. Since a knife or sharp weapon is not put to use, this really can't fall under the slasher genre. I guess this is more of a psycho thriller. 2/5