The Fantasist

MOVIE #1,176 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 10.04.23 50 MOVIES IN 32 DAYS! Like how Night Tide was more of a fantasy film than gothic horror this is more thriller than slasher flick. But in truth, this movie defies convention at nearly every turn and is borderline unclassifiable and genuinely weird. It’s about a serial killer obsessed with trying to recreate the famous 1752 painting “Portrait of Marie-Louis O’Murphy (Nude on a Sofa)” by Francois Boucher in photograph (see below) before brutally stabbing his victims in the back. Billed as Robin Hardy’s The Fantasist in the title card, this is Hardy’s followup to cult classic The Wicker Man which came out over a decade before. I don’t know much about Hardy but he directed only three films in total (2011’s The Wicker Tree, a companion piece to The Wicker Man, being his last). And that’s a shame because both of these movies are a head-scratching delight.

The film begins with some nifty cross-cutting of the first kill…


Set in Dublin, the story follows a young woman named Patricia who has recently left the countryside for the big city. Her neighbor, an American played by Timothy Bottoms (who was George W. Bush in the Trey Parker/Matt Stone live-action show That’s My Bush!), is a suspect but the audience knows that he’s simply another red herring. And, wow, is this performance something else. He’s doing a French accent for the entirety of his first scene and is generally one of the most insane characters I’ve seen in awhile. It’s over the top and very weird, but yet… it somehow works? …



I loved everything about this performance. Timothy Bottoms is TOPS in my book!

The movie isn’t perfect. Stylistically, it’s a bit of a mess with some awkward, choppy editing. And the character of the real killer isn’t fleshed out well at all. Although he does play bongos on Patricia’s ass…


But the story is fascinating and feels immensely original and unique. It seems to be commenting on the idea of repressed or stilted female sexuality as Patricia ultimately gets away by having sex with the murderer (whereas before she had been labeled a "prick tease"). It feels too easy to categorize this as misogynist when, in fact, I think it’s trying to satirize that notion. I’m not sure it’s 100% successful but it is satisfying when Patricia finally snags the killer by ripping off his prosthetic leg on a ferry…


What a great ending. It’s never explained why Timothy Bottoms character is also on the boat but finishing on the line “man overboard!” complete with a freeze frame was simply the perfect weird-ass ending for a completely weird-ass movie.

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The Fantasist is a 1986 thriller film written and directed by Robin Hardy. The film stars Moira Sinise, Christopher Cazenove and Timothy Bottoms. It is based on the 1983 novel Goosefoot by Irish author Patrick McGinley. It was released on January 23, 1987.