chow913 IMDb does it again. They list this film as "1987" despite the fact that the MPAA copyright date clearly says, "XMLXXXV." That's Roman numerals for 1985! Also NONE of the images used they include are actually part of the actual movie! IMDb.com, always trying to outdo Censorpedia's inaccuracy.Now that I've release that from my system, I'd first like to state that I've never been a big fan of going postal films. They never seem bold enough to take a stand as to whether the mass shooter is justified in his actions, tragic victim of circumstances, mentally ill or just plain evil. But 'Blood Wednesday' is just goofy enough to work.Not "goofy" as in a dark comedy, but goofy as in there are A LOT of elements in play here.Our dangerous loner is Harry. Right from the opening scene it's obvious Harry is mentally ill. He looses his job as an auto mechanic after he simply forgets how to put an engine back together. Something he's done many times before.Harry is hospitalized and an attractive doctor Dr. Johnson first speaks with Harry's ex wife whom wants nothing to do with him. So he's left in the custody of his older brother Ben who doesn't really care about him either. Ben just abandons him in an abandoned hotel. It's this old haunted abandoned hotel which gives 'Bloody Wednesday' its real unique edge. The audience themselves doesn't know where reality ends and Harry's insanity begins. Is the hotel really haunted? Is Harry really having an affair with Dr. Johnson? Just because Harry's clearly crazy doesn't mean these things aren't true. The viewer is left to decide for themselves.Most of the ghosts in the hotel are nice. The friendly bellboy warns Harry about a haunted room which stopped being rented out after two suicides. But when Harry actually talks with their ghosts he's discovers their deaths weren't so simple.Harry also talks with his teddy bear whom tells him to kill. When a gang of street thugs break in, Harry holds them at gun point while the bear weighs judgment on whether they should live or die.Harry also starts an affair with Dr. Johnson. Or does he? She denies it. But later lets him sleep on her couch. And Harry's ex wife later says she knows about the affair and wants to blackmail Dr. Johnson. So was it real after all?The same gang of muggers see Harry admiring an Uzi in a store window and ask, "What are you going to do with a machinegun?" Gee what would a mental patient want a machinegun for? Harry answers, "Use it." The thug later steals the Uzi and gives it to Harry just of laughs. Wow, what a nice guy! He steals a $10,000 gun and just gives it away? Harry's first fatality is an elderly security guard whom one of the hotel ghosts says murdered him. Has Harry just committed a cold blooded murder? Or has he merely brought justice to a tormented soul? Harry's next victim is his ex wife, simply because the teddy bear tells him to kill her.The final shooting rampage is so over the top it's comical. Harry merely enters a dinner and fires non stop with his Uzi for three full minutes, releasing hundreds of rounds! He then loads another clip and fires hundreds more! While he's clearly using a 25 round magazine he only reloaded after hundreds of shots! This is just plain silly. Also, since this all takes place over the course of six minutes, why are all the victims just standing there waiting to get shot? There's no rush for the back door or people hiding under tables or pleading for mercy! They just stand still for six full minutes! The ONLY diner who actually does anything is the one man who shoots Harry dead with one head shot from his own gun. Why was he waiting six minutes to shoot back? All in all 'Bloody Wednesday' has its moments. The story is a gripping one you'll want to follow. The big question is why Harry goes postal. He isn't angry at life or society. The climax just seems tacked on as a way to end it with fan service.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** The mass murder at a neighbor hood coffee shop by the deranged and delusional Harry Curtis, Raymond Elmendorf,could have been prevented if the police would have heeded his psychiatrist's Dr. Johnson's, Pamela Baker, warnings that he's just about to go off the deep end and explode. Harry has been down on his luck and life the last few weeks losing his job as a garage mechanic and having his wife Elaine, Tersea Mae Allen, walk out on him. Slowly losing it Harry trying the straighten out his shattered life tries religion but that has him walk buff naked to church during Sunday services that lead him to be committed into a mental institution for psychiatric observation. But under the care of his lawyer brother Ben, Navarre Perry, Harry is sent to stay at this half way house to get both his act and life together. It's there where Harry's mental state of mind goes from bad to worse: Much much much worse!With his mind slowly going offline Harry's hallucinations start to take over his mind and replace reality. It's only Harry's court appointed psychiatrist Dr. Johnson who realizes that Harry needs immediate psychiatric help, like being committed, before his mind snaps and he ends up killing someone. Before Harry does that he in fact gets conditioned by his deranged visions in flipping out and committing the murderous crime that he's to commit at the end of the movie. A crime that could have been prevented if only Harry had himself committed. Which by then not knowing right from wrong or fantasy from reality it was too late to help him and the some three dozen victims he was to gun down in the coffee shop whom he felt were a threat to him!***SPOILERS***With his both mind and reasoning processes completely gone Harry gets a Uzi machine-gun from one of the neighborhood gang bangers known as "The Animal", Jeff O'Haco, and goes into action. Crashing into the coffee shop Harry starts to mindlessly, like a mind numbed zombie, gun down everyone in sight. By the time the carnage was finally over, and Harry running out of bullets,36 people including Harry lied dead in the rubble. This was a massacre that could have well been prevented if Harry got the help that he so desperately needed. But by the police not taking Harry seriously as well as the pleas from his psychiatrist Dr. Johnson they in a way were just as responsible as he was by going by the book, in not having him committed, and letting him live out his murderous and paranoid fantasies.

udar55 So reads the tagline for this bizarre thriller, scripted and produced by Academy Award winner Philip Yordan. Raymond Elmendorf stars as Harry, a mechanic who is slowly losing touch with reality. After showing up at church naked, Harry is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Although deemed a danger to society, he is quickly released due to the overcrowding and moves into a large abandoned hotel. Once inside, Harry suffers torment from figures both real (local street thugs) and imaginary (the hotel's dead occupants). All of this leads him to his breaking point so he decks himself out with firepower and heads to a local diner.No doubt inspired by the 1984 McDonald's massacre in California by James Huberty, BLOODY Wednesday attempts to offer the reasons lurking behind random killing sprees. Unfortunately, it falls back on a series of cinematic psychological clichés, happy to portray Harry as an unprovoked nut/loner who has frequent dialogues with ghosts and his teddy bear (!). Harry may be a Vietnam vet (several moments of war sounds on the soundtrack allude to this), but it is never made clear. The film also offers some criticism of the mental health industry and the police but little time or attention is given to either.The most interesting aspect of BLOODY Wednesday is the alternating between real life and Harry's dream world. One is never quite sure what is happening to Harry is genuine or his imagination. Regrettably, the film lacks the budget, actors and direction to pull this off. Lead Raymond Elmendorf is passable as the tormented Harry, with the rest of the cast being made up of unknowns. The best performance is by Jeff O'Haco (who played one of the Libyans in BACK TO THE FUTURE) as gang leader Animal. This is director Mark G. Gilhuis' only feature (possibly a pseudonym?). Screenwriter Philip Yordan had an amazingly eclectic career, probably the only man to have won an Oscar and work on NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR.

FieCrier Miles better than some of the other movies of the 1980s and 1990s Philip Yordan was responsible for, but still pretty shoddy and odd.It starts off with a text scroll and voice-over explaining how the world isn't safe anymore, and how a bunch of people came to be killed in a coffee shop. We then see the bodies in the coffee shop. We then see the events leading up to that massacre.Harry is a strange man working in a garage. It's unclear if he is retarded or what exactly, since his behavior from scene to scene isn't entirely consistent. He's taken a car engine apart neatly and completely, but he can't figure out how to put even two pieces back together again (evidently he's usually very good at it). He's fired and his brother is called to come help him. Harry later walks into a church, singing along as he walks down the center aisle, naked. He's hospitalized where he proves to be very hostile with the Doctor there, but is released for lack of space and funding.Harry's older brother sets him up in an abandoned hotel he owns that still has electricity and plumbing. How much of what follows is real is unclear, since Harry seems to have very vivid hallucinations. Some punks who've snuck into the hotel give him trouble. Harry imagines he sees a bellhop and some of the former tenants of the hotel (shades of The Shining). He talks to his teddy bear, and hears it talking back to him (I was reminded of the boy in 1981's The Pit). He evidently has an ex-wife as well (she's in several scenes), or maybe she isn't real, I'm really not sure. He receives outpatient treatment from the Doctor who discharged him. He has some fantasies about he he can't separate from reality.