Clockwork (1978) dir. Sam Raimi

Another entry in our “early work by a horror auteur” theme for the week. This short from director Sam Raimi predates his gonzo horror breakthrough The Evil Dead by three years (and, given the long gestation of that project, may have been filmed contemporarily). “Clockwork” is difficult to see, both in the sense of “not a lot of copies in circulation” and “very difficult to make out the 8mm transfer to VHS”.

There’s no hope of reading the expressions of our lead (Cheryl Guttridge, a frequent collaborator on Raimi’s earliest projects), so we’ll focus on the blocking. If there’s an easy way to spot something by a director who’s going to handle bigger and better projects in the future (thinking also back to another horror director’s first film, John Carpenter’s “Captain Voyeur”), it’s not the lighting or the script or the effects, it’s the intentionality of the camera. Here the camera moves frequently through the house, particularly in the early going, but it never feels like movement for its own sake. The point of view is always moving, like a storyteller, between predetermined destinations – a smoldering cigar or a figure out the window.

I also think it’s interesting how much the “a young woman is stalked” trope was in the air before Halloween. “Clockwork” isn’t the first example by a long shot, but it feels way closer to the 80s slashers than When a Stranger Calls or Repulsion.