The film has way too many conveniences with the killer always being at the right place at the right time. I found this for the sake of the story only, and not convincing or effective. It probably was very suspenseful at the time, but not by today's standards, and unfortunately it did not stood the test of time. I understand the killer is psychotic and a sick individual, but even so too much does not make sense for this to be believable, scary or exciting.

Saw this in the mid 80s on a VHS. Revisited it recently on a DVD. Found the second viewing very boring n mild, especially in todays time. Lee Grant enrages misogynist serial killer Michael Ironside because of her strong views on women's rights. After narrowly escaping death, Lee finds herself stalked in her hospital by the killer. None of the performances are that well done n Michael Ironside has very little dialogue and just has to look insane, something he's fantastic at. Only two interesting aspects r ther in this boring n tame film. 1st, there's no attempt to hide who the killer is. Right from the start, we know the murderer's identity. 2nd, there is jus one tense scene in which Lee returns home to find Ironside bursting out wearing nothing but some of her jewellery and slashing at her. Afterwards the film became repetitive and slow and it was lacking enough bloodshed. The film lacked tension n suspense. Our killer is so relentless that he sneaks in n out the hospital so many times but at the same time he is a very incompetent one as he is not able to finish wht he started. I found the killer to be dumb too. What kinda serial killer brings home a girl, rapes n tortures her n then leaves her alive n that too when the whole area's police r on the lookout for him. What kinda killer leaves all his victim's photos easily accessible. By the way William Shatner was totally wasted.

I found Visiting Hours to be a pretty good thriller, able to effectively create a feeling of tension when the killer was stalking his victim. Michael Ironside played the killer well and created a sense of menace in his character.There are a few flaws I noticed with what the characters do and say (or don't say). For example, the one girl who was assaulted by the killer knew where he lived so she got back at him by hiring some friends to trash the place, if she knew where he lived, why didn't she tell the cops? There's also a scene where the main woman is running from the killer in a hospital, she doesn't scream or make any noise at all really. I understand not wanting to give away where she is, but there were people there, the hospital was empty, but there were cops outside, and there actually was a janitor that walked by not hearing anything, because she didn't scream for help!!!.Though I found that the level of suspense and tension in the movie was rather effective so I was able to forgive these things, but they did keep me from possibly giving it a higher rating.

"Visiting Hours" is the intense story of Deborah Ballin, a women's rights activist who causes much controversy in her decision to support a woman who killed her abusive husband. This decision causes a psychotic misogynist to hunt down Ms.Ballin and kill her. However, his violent attack only sends her to the local hospital, where she makes friends with a kind-hearted nurse. The psychopath then hunts her and all those close to her down in order to finish what he started. Although it sounds like your typical '80s slaughter-thon, this movie actually has more depth to it than most. Instead of b-actors that don't know what they're doing, this cast is made up of some pretty good actors such as Academy-Award winner Lee Grant, William Shatner, the ever-creepy Michael Ironside, and Linda Purl. I believe that Ironside was perfectly cast here and gives a great performance as a soulless, evil killer. Another thing that sets this apart from the other slasher flicks is the dark-nature of the violence. Most of these flicks are very gory, but they are mostly light-hearted and campy. This was just dark and quite mean-spirited, which makes the movie very effective. I certainly recommend this frightening little gem!Rated: R for Violence and Profanity