around it, they know they're supposed to be scared," he points out. "It's been done.. .pardon the expression.. .to death."

"But when the scene of the crime is friendly and familiar, they're lulled into a false sense of security."

Among the perversely pleasant environs in He Knows You're Alone are a small town amusement park... a cavernous art deco movie theatre . a jogger's path through a sunlit glen. . the sanctuary of a church... and oddly, most menacing of all, a snug, inviting home on a suburban side street.

To conform with the concept of making "common, everyday," locales ominous, Mastroianni shot He Knows You're Alone entirely on action. The chosen site was Staten Island, New York's most isolated borough, a short ferry ride-and several light years in atmosphere-from Manhattan.

Having gone to school there, he used fondly remembered landmarks as settings for mayhem. Some were still the same-such as an old fashioned amusement park, complete with bounce 'em cars, roller coasters and a house of horrors.

Hanks, Dana Barron and whose shrieking monsters wouldn't faze even an impressionable five-year-old-that heroine Caitlin O'Heaney sees one spectre standing starkly alone. It is the figure of her visions, holding a gleaming knife which now drips blood.

Other locales proved a different challenge. For a sinister scene in a theatre, Mastroianni looked forward to filming at a faded old art deco movie palace where he recalls he spent "more hours as a kid than I did in school." It was shut and boarded, however, a victim of the entertainment shift to nearby shopping centers.

He reopened the old theatre, refurbished its projection facilities and rest rooms (both necessary to the plot), then discovered-on one of the coldest days of the year-that its heating system was comatose!

Music for the film was composed by Alexander and Mark Peskanov. Co-producers were Robert Di Milia and Nan Rarlman. Gerald Feil was director of photography and Edgar Lansbury and Joseph Beruh served as executive producers.