★ 7 / 10
Ann Sothern gives what is probably the best
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Ann Sothern gives what is probably the best performance ever on a B-movie, giving dimenion and depth to her character through subtlety and emotion. As for the…
Ann Sothern gives what is probably the best performance ever on a B-movie, giving dimenion and depth to her character through subtlety and emotion. As for the rest of the film, well, it isn't bad, actually, but it's just kind of lost when it comes to focus. It's an interesting character study in its own right, but it could've been way better. Nevertheless, it remains very reminiscnent of 'Psycho' given the way it explores how much a mover's love affects a child.
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★ 6 / 10
A young and handsome but impotent mama's boy
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A young and handsome but impotent mama's boy takes revenge on the ladies who crossed him (mocking the man's sexual ineptitude will guarantee an early exit).…
A young and handsome but impotent mama's boy takes revenge on the ladies who crossed him (mocking the man's sexual ineptitude will guarantee an early exit). Neatly directed by Curtis Harrington ("Games", "Night Tide", "Ruby"), this oedipal thriller is sufficiently creepy, but its misogynistic depiction of women as tarts whose antics are deserving of violence by a male psychopath (hence inadvertently portraying him as sympathetic) leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
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★ 5 / 10
Terry (John Savage, The Deer Hunter) was forced
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Terry (John Savage, The Deer Hunter) was forced to participate in a gang assault and served two years in prison, losing his sanity. His mother Thelma (Ann…
Terry (John Savage, The Deer Hunter) was forced to participate in a gang assault and served two years in prison, losing his sanity. His mother Thelma (Ann Sothern, so many roles, but also the titular voice of My Mother the Car) runs a boarding house for old women who all gossip about the strange nature of their relationship; if you didn't know the truth, you would think they were a married couple, not a son and his mother.
Thelma wishes that the victim of the assault, Tina (Sue Bernard, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) was dead. So Terry runs her off the road. He hears how his attorney Rhea Benson (Ruth Roman, whose slate of movies in the early 70s was absolutely wild between this, The Baby and Impulse) didn't protect him enough, so he kills her too. He even kills new tenant Lori (Cindy Williams, who was commuting between the set of this film and The Conversation) and they move the body out in full view of their suspicious neighbor Lori (Luana Anders, Night Tide).
Speaking of that librarian next door, that same character shows up in 1980s The Attic, which was also written by Tony Crechales and George Edwards.
Also, to those that worry about cat murder, yes — a cat does die in this. It was a real cat in that scene, but it was sedated by a vet. The one in the dumpster is an actual euthanized cat, but it was not killed for this production.
Sadly, this movie had poor distribution and was lost for a few years. How exciting is it that we live in a world where films get found and we can find them ourselves so easily?
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