June 30: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Slasher! This month, I tackled a different genre every day. This is the end.

Directed by Robert Hartford-Davis (The Black Torment, Gonks Go Beat, Black Gun, my beloved Corruption) and written by Brian Comport (Girly, The Asphyx), this starts with a baptism being juxtaposed with a pretty young girl being stripped, strangled and thrown in a river. Ah, British pre-slashers, you are never subtle.

Birdy Wemys (Ann Todd) has given most of her money and home to the Brethren, a fire and brimstone church that believes that the world is going to hell. All of the religion in the home and sermons of the minister (Patrick Magee) have made her withdrawn son Kenny (Tony Beckley) into a lunatic cleaning the streets of fallen women.

Kenny uses his job as at a public swimming pool to basically yell at girls who dress in skimpy bathing suits and then at night, he’s a security guard. Meanwhile, his mother’s health is failing and the minister won’t let any of his followers take medicine. Yet she still gets insulin for her diabetes and a state provider nurse, Brigitte (Madeleine Hinde), who tells her investigative reporter sister Paddy (Suzanna Leigh) about the ministry. As she’s been writing about cults, Paddy tries to sneak in, pretending that she’s an expectant mother.

Kenny starts killing women everywhere, from a nubile teen who goes topless at the pool to ladies of the evening, leaving them for people to find stripped of their clothing and dangling from meat hooks or hanging out of cement trucks. His mother grows closer to Paddy and the minister accuses them of being a lesbians and takes her medication. As Birdy starts to die, Paddy tries to save her but is locked in the basement by Kenny who finds out too late that the minister was wrong. As his mother dies, he confesses to the religious man that he’s the Nude Killer that’s been in the newspapers. Then he crucifies the minister in his own church.

Also known as The Fiend, this has some incredible music and a great theme. I have a weakness for early 70s sexploitation horrors from England. Richard Kerr and Tony Osborne created a great soundtrack and this church, while certifiable, knows how to rock it out with their music. Maxine  Barrie sings “Wash Me In His Blood” as people start to come alive with the spirit and you know, I would never survive the 70s because I’d totally love to be in one of these movie cults.

You can watch this on YouTube.