X-Ray (1981)

“Ample displays of Benton’s uncovered anatomy” – Splatter Movies

“A chamberpot of cliches” – Creature Features

The movie starts with a typical 80s slasher premise featuring three kids on Valentine’s Day 19 years ago. A brother and sister are playing with their fancy train set and ignoring the nerdy Harold. Harold drools at the train set and the pre-teen blonde as her peers through the window in a stalker-like fashion. He leaves a Valentine Card for his crush but has his heartbroken as the girl and her brother mock him for even thinking he was up to their status. In a fit of heartbroken rage, the 11-year-old boy impales his lady love’s brother on the coat-and-umbrella hanger, leaving him screaming in horror.

As we move to present times, we can see that the petite blonde has blossomed into a bombshell with an awe-inspiring post-Farrah-Fawcett hairstyle that is nothing short of a work of art. Her boyfriend drops her off at the local hospital, where she has an appointment for a general check-up, but things don’t go quite according to plan as she begins what will be the longest and most torturous day of her life.

A deranged Dr. or somebody is posing as a Dr. who is on a murderous spree at the hospital. The body count quickly multiplies as anybody who seems to get in his way is ruthlessly slaughtered using various surgical procedures, knives and tools. The common thread to the murders appears to be the medical files and case of Barbi Benton that the killer is manipulating for reasons best known to him. When the hospital’s medical team analyses Ms. Benton’s fake files, they believe that she is fatally ill and demand that she remains at the hospital until they investigate further. Poor Ms. Benton is thus set about by a particularly sleazy doctor who takes gratuitous pleasure in having her strip naked and probe and prof every inch of her body while the camera lingers on salaciously. Why would you cast a Playboy centrefold, after all, for her acting skills? Then you remember watching a Cannon production and the casting and the shameless exploitation are just par for the course.

Now starts a deadly game of cat and mouse as Barbi Benton gradually realizes that there is a murderer on the prowl and that she is undoubtedly the target of his deranged affection. She is about to be operated upon for an ailment that doesn’t exist, but a doctor comes to her aid at the crucial moment. Dr. Harry is all friendliness and cooperation, and he helps Ms. Benton to discover the truth about her files being switched with fake ones and her diagnosis completely incorrect.

Now Ms. Benton must somehow dodge a very persistent killer and somehow convince the hospital staff that she is the picture of health and doesn’t need any operation at all. Her files are being doctored by the lunatic killer who decimates the hospital staff without anybody noticing. Ultimately she must face her demons and fight her battles alone as the killer closes in on her relentlessly. The horrifying truth is finally revealed in a frantic hair-raising climax, and the audience is left gasping in shock at the killer’s identity. Ms. Benton is a tough adversary. Throughout the horrors that she confronts during her extended trip to the hospital, not once does her hairstyle appear anything less than perfectly sculpted with flowing locks and curls oozing sex appeal.

X-Ray is typical Cannon fodder of the 80’s when the most impressive thing about their movies by far was the promotional poster. The X-Ray one is perfection, with th Bobbie Benton’s Playboy connection being the major selling point, but when you end up with a final product such as X-Ray, you know you need as much help selling the product in any which way possible. It is a pretty dire film, just about watchable as the pace, fortunately, doesn’t slacken to the point of total inertia. However, there is little to recommend the film other than to fans of Miss Barbi Benton and Playboy magazine and some may enjoy the lurid scene of her being groped by a sleazy doctor that seemed to go on and on for ages. The director attempts to create suspense and tension by introducing several potential killers. There is a rather comical attempt at injecting some extra horror by some omen-like chants accompanying the killings as though to suggest there may be a religious slant about the killer’s motives. The deaths are not particularly graphic and occur mostly off-screen, and the finest bit of shock gore is when one of the hospital staff is dunked in a vat of some nasty looking green liquid and comes out of it looking like. “Cactus Head” with nasty green boils all over his face.

The climax arrives as a release from purgatory, and the film is finally over. It’s a pretty rotten slasher film on the whole with little to recommend other than Ms. Barbi Benton’s immaculately maintained hairstyle. There are no scares, no shocks, no sequences of tension, and the acting is generally pretty diabolical as well. It’s just another day at the office for Cannon Films that would happily churn out heaps of similar garbage and end up selling it to the far reaches of the planet where unsuspecting audiences would be duped to part with their money. Cannon doing what they did best, b-grade fodder, or Cannon fodder for the lowest common denominator. Watch out for the Three Crazy Ladies, though, as their timely intervention triggers the mayhem.