Schizoid (film)

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Schizoid (also known as Murder by Mail) is a 1980 horror film directed and written by David Paulsen.

[edit] Plot

Julie (Marianna Hill) is an advice columnist for the city newspaper who begins to receive anonymous notes threatening murder and worse. At about the same time, female members of the group therapy session she attends are being stabbed, one by one, by an unknown assailant. Is there a connection? If so, why do the notes talk about murder with a gun, while the murder victims are being stabbed? At first, the police, her ex-husband, her therapist and her friends all assure her that the notes are probably unrelated, and hoax; but with time, it becomes apparent that someone close to her is responsible. Is it her therapist, Pieter (Klaus Kinski), who has sex with his patients just before they are murdered? Or Pieter's daughter (Donna Wilkes), who resents Julie for Julie's romantic involvement with Pieter? Is it Julie's ex-husband (Craig Wasson), who never really wanted their divorce? Or maybe Gilbert (Christopher Lloyd), the eccentric building maintenance man whom many people believe is a little crazy anyway? Just about everyone around her seems mentally disturbed enough to be the culprit.