1977's "The Comeback" marked a downturn for exploitation director Pete Walker, coming off well known titles like "House of Whipcord," "Frightmare," "House of Mortal Sin," and "Schizo," here reuniting with screenwriter Murray Smith, author of earlier efforts "Cool It Carol," "Die Screaming Marianne," and "Four Dimensions of Greta." With this and the subsequent underage sex drama "Home Before Midnight," Walker seems handcuffed with more conventional storytelling, few characters in this small scale mystery about an American pop star, Nick Cooper (Jack Jones), who had put his career on hold for controlling spouse Gail (Holly Palance), now a free man working on a comeback album in London, his ex viciously butchered in their former apartment, the corpse occasionally revisited by Walker as it gradually decomposes in gruesome fashion. His manager (David Doyle) puts him up at a country manor with his only companions the married caretakers, Sheila Keith as Mrs. B and Bill Owen as the silent Mr. B, and a welcome attraction toward secretary Linda Everett (Pamela Stephenson) to take his mind off his recent marital troubles. While the lovebirds spend time together, Nick's buddy Harry (Peter Turner) is also murdered in the same building as Gail, this time hacked in the elevator after discovering her fetid corpse. Sleepless nights accompany Nick with screams and apparitions, but with Walker regular Sheila Keith dismissing them as figments of a vivid imagination you know something strange is afoot! There's precious little meat on these bare bones apart from the well staged, bloody set pieces, the killer donning an old hag mask and wig, a surprisingly predictable outing quite unlike Keith's memorable "Frightmare," the recordings sounding like nothing current that might engender further success, neither disco nor punk, strictly middle of the road like Engelbert Humperdinck. The singing son of actors Allan Jones and Irene Hervey, Jack Jones isn't bad but displays about as much charisma as Pat Boone in Terence Fisher's "The Horror of It All," it could have been far more interesting with Ringo Starr, Cat Stevens, or Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music playing the part (Walker would actually sign Mick Jagger's younger brother Chris to play a rock singer in his next picture). Pamela Stephenson's considerable charm and awesome physical attributes make up for her being cast as the girl in peril, first considered for Melanie Griffith or Kim Basinger, the guest star cameo supplied by Richard Johnson as Dr. Ian Macauley, a psychiatrist who cautions his nurse (June Chadwick) to be 'tactful' with Nick following an apparent nervous breakdown; her response: "you went nuts!" The acting daughter of Hollywood's Jack Palance, a smiling Holly Palance achieves yet another regrettably early exit as in her previous horror film "The Omen," in which she played Damien's doomed nanny who hangs herself at a birthday party full of terrified children. Pete Walker would follow "Home Before Midnight" with one final effort, an old fashioned throwback called "House of the Long Shadows," uniting Vincent Price, John Carradine, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee under its dark and gloomy roof.