The Seduction is director and writer David Schmoeller’s follow-up to Tourist Trap. While that film exists in its own strange universe, where Chuck Connors just so happens to have psychic powers, this is based in the real—well, not always—world of Los Angeles. According to star Morgan Fairchild, Schmoeller was inspired by a story about a viewer stalking a TV reporter.

Jamie Douglas (Fairchild) has finally broken through and become an anchor on the local nightly news. Things are good — people like her — and she has a boyfriend named Brandon (Michael Sarrazin). The problems start when she begins to receive calls, letters and gifts from a man named Derek (Andrew Stevens, preparing to own the 1980s erotic thriller genre but not before he’d go from being a psychosexual deviant to chasing one with Bronson in 10 to Midnight). Soon, he also bothers her friend Robin (Colleen Camp) and drops by work to bring chocolates; Jamie, if anything, is too friendly and gently turns him down.

After he doesn’t stop calling her, Jamie learns that Brandon- a photographer- lives next door. He walks right in and starts taking photos of her. Her boyfriend beats him bloody, and when they talk to a cop named Maxwell (Vince Edwards), they learn that there’s not much they can do. As for Derek, he’s already bothering Robin, demanding that she talk to Jamie for him.

A doctor tells her that Derek is infatuated but to a degree that makes him psychotic. Would you say, mental enough to hide in the closet and go one-handed while she takes a bath? Oh Derek, can’t you see that a model named Julie (Wendy Smith Howard) is in love with you? Why did you tell her that you’re engaged?

Jamie starts to realize that Derek could be the Sweetheart Killer, a serial murderer that she’s been reporting on. He goes so far as to change her teleprompter while she’s on the air, leading to her having a breakdown in front of the entire city. Brandon tries to comfort her in the hot tub, but he’s soon killed by Derek mid-coitus; as our killer buries him in his front yard, the cops put Jamie on hold. On hold! Who is working there, Father Tom from Amityville II?

This is when Jamie goes full-final girl, blasting at Derek with a shotgun and starting to stalk him right back, repeatedly calling him and telling him how bad she wants him. As he comes back to the house to attack her, he runs into Julie, who tearfully announces that she knows that Jamie doesn’t really love him. He blows right past her — he has murder and sexual assault to do — before she turns the tables and becomes aggressive with him, begging him to have sex with her, revealing his impotence. Angered beyond all hope, he attacks her, just in time for Julie to announce that she’s seen Lipstick and wasn’t that part cool where the rapist got shotgunned?

This has a decent horror pedigree, as it’s the third film produced by Irwin Yablans (Halloween) and Bruce Cohn Curtis, who also made Roller Boogie and Hell Night.

The Seduction is a scuzzy film; I have no complaints. Yet it still has a theme song, “Love’s Hiding Place,” sung by Dionne Warwick! This song was written by the film’s composer, Lalo Schifrin. He may have written the Mission: Impossible theme but got no respect from the credit crew on this, as they spelled his last name incorrectly.

It left me wondering how so many early 80s American Giallo movies have the only nude appearances by major actresses. I’m looking at you, Blind Date, with Kirstie Alley going bare. I was shocked to see multiple nude scenes by Fairchild in this with nobody double being used. Bonus points for the script, which has Colleen Camp’s character declare, “Art, fart!”

Double word score for Lucan star Kevin Brophy appearing, Tom DeSimone’s brother Bob being in the cast as a shutterbug, and Fairchild’s sister Cathryn Hartt as a teleprompter person.

Triple overall score for this being the last Avco Embassy Film.

IMDB BS footnote for this one: “Apparently, veteran actress Bette Davis really liked this movie, and after viewing it on cable television, she allegedly sent the movie’s star, Morgan Fairchild, a congratulatory letter complimenting her work on the film.”

You can watch this on Tubi.