IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069375/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
TRAILER:
TRAILER UPLOADED TO YOUTUBE BY USER crackedcraig
First thing, I have to say this, they don’t make trailers like they used to anymore. I always love that 1970s voice over.
For years, this has been among my highest on my list of must sees. Having read about it recently again on the BleedingSkull’s site, and noticing I had just missed it recently on American Horrors, I sought out and found it. By no means is this my holy grail, Lunch Meat took that spot, as had Sledgehammer, but it was definitely part of my quests.
This is another film loosely based on Ed Gein. Much like Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even more so Deranged, were. All of which were pretty damn good. Hell, even the mid 90s(?) biopic with Steve Railsback was pretty damn good. So the inspiration seems to be among the best in all of horror trope history.
After their car breaks down, on a stormy night in the middle of nowhere, a group of attractive ladies find refuge in a desolate farm house with an angry old man and his seemingly normal and charming son. Despite his father’s urging, he allows the ladies to stay. Billy Townsend seems innocent enough, even seems to genuinely care about the ladies, but soon something horrible reveals itself…….
As with a lot of early 70s horror, the gore is not the greatest and often during kill scenes, the camera pans away or the act is done off screen. There is also a little bit of character devolpment with Billy, he genuinely does not want to be involved in what he does, but feels he has no choice, he desires to be punished for what has has one on, he also has heavy remorse.
There is a bad loss of tone in this, with a completely unnecessary nightclub scene, complete with a two full song band performance. It was clearly there to waste some more time, being this is a short film at 78 minutes. All it did was remove me completely from it. Sure in all fairness, the first song was catchy as hell, but the second one had me begging for it to end. Alright seriously, what the hell is with this concert footage, taking up about 10 minutes and adding nothing to the plot. The whole bar scenes were completely useless. It was so bad I damn near turned it off, a side note, there are 3 films, during this month that I did in fact turn off, for severe boredom or stupidity. Those I will talk about one day.
There is a massively telegraphed twist, no one will be shocked by it, in fact you’ll likely not care anymore, as was my case. I ended up watching the timer instead.
There is one apropos moment, involving a character hearing ” kill her” over and over in his head, funny that was going through mine slightly at the time, only replace the her, with me every time.
RATING: D+(58%)
PROS: Came out the door with all guns blazing, had great potential, great title. A flashback sequence was different for the time. One slight moment at about the 75 minute mark, was slightly intriguing.
CONS: Too much inactivity, issues with changes in tone, the nightclub band set pretty much killed this film for me. Bad pacing and severe tone shifts are a deal breaker for me.
Too bad, I really had high hopes for this one. It pains me to dislike it.
But way too much lost potential here……….
Depressing……………
Violence, Viscera & Vixens 