Harry Curtis (Raymond Elmendorf) walks into a church naked. He is taken away and committed to a mental institution for observation. His doctor is Dr. Johnson (Pamela Baker). She would like to keep him locked up a little longer, but she has no standing to authorize it. After he is released Harry’s problems get worse. He ends up having a hard time finding and keeping a job. He is a car mechanic but has recently been fired by his boss, Jake (Dale E. Turner), and is in the process of getting a divorce from his wife, Elaine (Teresa Mae Allen). His older brother, Ben (Navarre Perry) tries to help but Harry screws up so much that he is running out of options. Ben is an accountant and keeps the books for someone who owns an old, abandoned hotel. He lets Harry stay there since, without a job or money, Harry’s prospects are nonexistent.
Harry takes up residence in the hotel. As soon as he arrives, he is attacked by three hoodlums, (Jeff O’Haco, Victor Ochoa, Will Gotay) that are vandalizing the building. He calls the cops and the hoods get arrested. Soon after that Harry begins having hallucinations. A bellhop named Stanley (John Landrtoop) tells him about a woman (Linda Dona) who committed suicide in room 1327 by jumping out of a window 28 years ago. Harry meets the ghost of the woman.
As his mental health deteriorates, Harry begins experiencing more hallucinations. Long dead guests, snakes, even a visit by his ex-wife add to his mental breakdown to the point where he cannot distinguish the difference between reality and illusion. As his confusion mounts, Harry becomes upset with what he perceives is going on around him. Anger begins to cloud his mind even more. Harry gets to the point where he believes the only way to regain his power is to resort to violence.
“Bloody Wednesday” was released in 1987 and was directed by Mark G. Gilhuis. It is a psychological thriller with horror and slasher elements
The main problem with slasher style movies from the 80’s is that, quite often, acting, dialogue and plot are given up for blood, guts and gore. Add to that a small budget and you end up with a boring story punctuated by shock value. In this case, except for the last five minutes of the movie, there isn’t near as much blood as you would expect.
In the film, how much of what Harry is experiencing is genuine and how much is his imagination is unclear. The viewer ends up being just as confused about what is real and what is not. The question is further complicated because you are also not sure if what is being shown is a hallucination or a ghost. If you think you know what is going on, you don’t. From the beginning you know how the movie ends. The story unfolded slowly and actually crawled in some spots. The entire film was the lead up to the ending. Even though the movie is fraught with horrible dialogue and a complicated story there is still something about it that compels you to watch.
The movie is supposedly based on the San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre of 1984. In July of that year a man, James Huberty entered the San Ysidro McDonald’s with a semi-automatic rifle. He killed 21 people and injured 19 more. He was killed by a police sniper. The film has very little resemblance to the actual events of the massacre other than a lot of people being shot.