EDITOR’S NOTE: Maneater was on the CBS Late Movie on September 26, 1975 and May 9, 1977.
Directed by Vince Edwards — Ben Casey himself — and written by Edwards, Marcus Demian and Jimmy Sangster, Maneater is another retelling of The Most Dangerous Game, this time with two couples — Nick and Gloria Baron (Ben Gazzara and Sheree North) and Shep and Polly (Kip Niven and Laurette Spang) — who are on an RV vacation.
Look, if you go on an RV trip in a 70s movie, you’re dead.
As their camper breaks down, they’re helped by Carl Brenner (Richard Basehart), who is the owner of two tigers. As money is low, he’s been feeding them by causing accidents and having the tigers get a buffet of tourists. But first, he has his wife Paula (Claire Brennen) serve them a rattlesnake dinner. Then he shows them his private camp area and offers it to them, which they should have said no to, because after dinner he was going on about conversation starters like “Men kill for pleasure. Animals kill to survive.”
What follows is cats chasing humans and Ben Gazzara proving that while he’s a city boy, he knows how to survive.
Bleeding Skull’s Top 50 (July 7 – 13) The middle-brow champions of low-brow horror, Bleeding Skull has picked out some of their favorites from the SWV catalog. They neglected to put I Drink Your Blood or EEGAH!on the list, but I think I can forgive them since they included Ship of Monsters.
You better like the song “Beware of the 4-D Witch!” when you watch this. Written by Joe Bisko with vocals by Johnny by the Way and music by Attila Galamb, it’s one of two songs that plays through nearly all of this movie, which wasn’t recorded with synched sound and instead has voiceovers. You will hear this song so many times that you may lose your mind.
The other songs are Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” Ravel’s “Bolero,” Mussorgsky’s “Night On Bald Mountain,” Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War (from The Planets suite)” and strangely enough, “A Saucerful of Secrets” by Pink Floyd.
I have no idea who Victor Luminera was or is. This is all that he created and left us with and you know, it’s enough. How does one describe this movie?
Let me try.
The end of the 70s occult fascination mixed with props made by Ben Cooper overlayed with nudie cutie style filmmaking that never becomes sexy all with overlaid images like you’re tripping acid at the Fillmore while Kenneth Anger possesses Victor to make something like his films but with no budget and the lowest quality camera ever made.
Cindy (Margo, her only name) promised her daddy she’d be a virgin but she loves the occult and is as horny as me after walking through the saloon doors to the adult section of Heads Together. Abigail the 4D Witch (Esoterica) promises her a rich fantasy sex life if she follows her. Together, they have Super Orgasms and travel on the astral plane like the wet dreams of Chris Claremont.
One of their missions has them making gay neighbor Mr. Jones (Kelly Guthrie, The Sexorcist) straight — problematic! — and then they get Cindy’s friend Jan Kleinmetz (Tracy Handfuss, who unlike many folks in this was in more than one movie; she’s also in A Clock Work Blue, Did Baby Shoot Her Sugardaddy? and in the starring role — Toni Carrione — in The Goddaughter) all goofed up on spider venom and human blood, which leads her to play with a snake that slithers its way out of her asshole. Yes, this happens and it feels like a Tim Vigil comic book come to life.
The problems happen when the fantasy sex — as Abigail says, “Let’s fantasy fuck now!” — gets out of hand and Jan gets hurt. It turns out that the 4D Witch is angry that Cindy — in a past life — stole her lover and this is all about revenge, but like a square up reel, Cindy learns that prayer can stop the occult. This leads to Jan waking up from death and saying, “Salem, witch bitch!”
Somehow, the movie continues and Cindy’s brother Mark (Tom Yerian) becomes the King of the Sex Vampires, I shit you not. If you’re shocked that a copy of Look with Anton LaVey on the cover appears, you haven’t been paying attention.
The Fourth Dimension is beyond good and evil, so who are we to judge the 4D Witch? It remains untouched by science. Somewhere in all this, Jan also has a sapphic moment with her Aunt Fanny (Annette Michael, who appeared as Annette Anderson in Flesh Gordon). Jan has more problems with liking women than with incest, so…yeah. The only thing that can stop this 4D Witch and her curse is an actual orgasm from a doctor, which makes me wonder about said therapist’s ethics and the idea that reality can be more powerful than fantasy.
This is the kind of movie that promises and delivers necrophilia and yet censors out every use of the word fuck after the first time it is uttered.
Amazingly — thanks to Bill Van Ryn of Groovy Doom and Drive-In Asylum — this played Hawaiian drive-ins with The Devil’s Rain!An Anton LaVey double feature!
June 14: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Beach! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
John D. MacDonald had several of his books turned into movies. The Executioners was filmed twice as Cape Fear, Soft Touch inspired Man-Trap, plus the novels Darker Than Amber, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, Condominium and A Flash of Green were all made into movies. Even this story was turned into two TV movies with the second starring Virginia Madsen as Linda.
Linda Reston (Stella Stevens) has a bad marriage with Paul (Ed Nelson, The Devil’s Partner), who is daydreaming of leaving her when she suddenly shoots their friend Anne Braden (Mary-Robin Redd) and turns the gun on Anne’s husband Jeff (John Saxon!) while at the beach. Paul calls the cops and when they arrive, Jeff is alive and the twosome accuses Paul of killing Anne.
As you can tell right away, Linda and Jeff are working together to get rid of their spouses and make a new life for themselves. Luckily, Marshall Journeyman (John McIntire, who replaced both Ward Bond on Wagon Train and Charles Bickford on The Virginian when both of those actors died), an elder lawyer, takes on his case and starts to investigate Linda and Jeff.
Paul sneaks out of his cell and soon learns that his wife has been conspiring with Jeff, which leads Journeyman to get the cops in on a scam to call her and try and get a confession. She’s too tough but man, Jeff folds right away. She tells him he’s spineless and also informs her now ex-husband that she won’t be in jail long.
Stella Stevens is quite wonderful in this. She’s so cold and has everything figured out but yet as she laments, she’s never been able to find a man who isn’t spineless. Her husband can’t even bury a dead animal without having a nervous breakdown and her lover gets her arrested for murder. I’d love a sequel where we learn how she takes over prison.
June 6: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Paul Naschy! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
Released in Spain as La rebelión de las muerta (Rebellion of the Dead Women), this León Klimovsky-directed and Paul Naschy-written movie was also released in Italy as La Vendetta dei Morti Viventi (Revenge of the Living Dead), in Germany as three titles — Rebellion of the Living Dead, Invocation of the Devil (blame The Exorcist) and Blood Lust of the Zombies in 1980 to cash in on Dawn of the Dead— and after playing double features in the U.S. with The Dracula Saga, it returned — like a zombie — from Independent Artists as Walk of the Dead, complete with a “Shock Notice” before every murder.
I can’t even imagine what people who saw this expecting Romero thought. It’s closer to the 40s zombie movies mixed with some giallo, as a serial killer is murdering gorgeous women, all of whom are brought back to life by a mystic named Kantaka (Naschy), who is building an army of, well, sexy female zombies. He also has a brother, Krishna (Naschy in a second part) making people feel good about themselves and enlightened. Naschy even gets a third role as Satan!
At the heart of the movie is Elvire (Rommy, The Killer With a Thousand Eyes), the kind of ravishing redhead that seemingly only lives in Eurohorror movies. She’s just lost her father and butler. Kantaka wants to add her to his growing group of sensual and sultry walking dead.
A lot of people say bad things about this movie but they are closed minded folks who can’t grip the fact that a surrealist Spanish horror film with a fuzzed out jazz score, Paul Naschy, Mirta Miller (Dr. Jekyll vs. the Werewolf), María Kosti (The Night of the Sorcerers), lots of slow motion, plenty of stock footage and the kind of feeling that even Naschy said felt drug-induced can be what movie watching should be about. I could care less being into what’s the hottest and parroting the words of film Twitter. Nope, I’m happy watching an absolutely battered copy of this, so excited that Rommy is in a cover version of an Italian gothic by way of an American zombie movie, diaphanous white gown and all. This movie is made on location in its own world and we’re all the better to spend just a few minutes within it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by Jason, who made a one-time donation and told me to pick any 70’s TV I wanted. So how about an entire week?
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Originally broadcast on NBC as a two-part episode on The Wonderful World of Disney on October 31, and November 7, 1971, The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove is a very live action Disney film in that kids are making a monster, an adult thinks that it’s real and a sheriff doesn’t want to believe them.
Every year, schoolteacher Henry Meade (Burgess Meredith, not yet Mickey or Satan himself) takes his students out on the lake to be part of nature, but this year, he sees what he thinks is a monster, which scares the kids and gives Mrs. Pringle (Agnes Moorehead) the chance to finally get him fired.
To try and save their favorite teacher’s job, Tippy (Annie McEveety) Scott (Jimmy Bracken) and Catfish (Patrick Creamer) make their own sea monster and plan on sending it out on the lake so everyone believes Meade. Except they run into smugglers — yes, this is a lot like Mystery of Dracula’s Castle — and that brings in the sheriff (Bill Zuckert).
This being a 70s kid movie, of course Kim Richards is in it.
Based on The Mad Scientist’s Club by Bertrand R. Brinley, The Strange Monster of Strawberry Cove was directed by Jack Shea, who also directed 110 episodes of The Jeffersons, and written by Herman Groves.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s movie is brought to you by Jason, who made a one-time donation and told me to pick any 70’s TV I wanted. So how about an entire week?
Would you like to have me write about the movies of your choice? It’s simple!
Go to our Ko-Fi site and donate. There’s no set amount and I won’t tell you what to do. In fact, if you just keep reading for free, we can still be friends.
Join as a monthly member for just $1. That makes you a Little B&S’er.
As a Medium B&S’er at just $3 a month, if you pick a movie or a director, I’ll write about them for you. In fact, I’ll do one for each month you subscribe and even dedicate the post to you.
For $5 a month, you basically get some major power. As a Big B&S’er, I’ll write an entire week on any subject you’d like. How awesome would that be? In fact, I’ll do it for every month you’re a member. Do you think any of your other movie sites will do that for you?
Originally airing on January 7 and 14, 1973 on The Wonderful World of Disney, this live action movie was directed by Robert Totten, who mostly worked in TV, and written by Sue Milburn, who mostly wrote episodic television and made for TV movies.
Marsha Booth (Mariette Hartley) is a single mom who has a deadline to write her new book, which causes her to take a vacation to the beach, bringing along her sons Alfie (Johnny Whitaker) and Leonard (Scott C. Kolden). They occupy themselves by taking over an abandoned lighthouse and making a movie, “Dracula’s Castle” with the sheriff’s daughter Jean (Maggie Wellman) and a dog named Watson.
What they don’t know is that there’s a bunch of jewel thieves — Keith (Clu Gulager) and Noah (Mills Watson) — who have found the Daumier diamond necklace in the lighthouse. There’s a conspiracy in town and the sheriff (James T. Callahan) — who is Jean’s dad — doesn’t want to hear these kids and their stories. But maybe, just maybe, he will come around.
If Watson the dog looks familiar, he was played by Higgins, who was also Uncle Joe Carson’s dog on Petticoat Junction. A mix of Miniature Poodle, Cocker Spaniel and Schnauzer, Higgins was found by animal trainer Frank Inn found the dog at the Burbank Animal Shelter as a puppy. His most famous role was played when he was already retired, coming back to star in Benji, becoming the first dog actor to have the role.
If you’re expecting vampires, this is not the movie for you.
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 26 and 27, 2024. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included) for an additional $15 per person. You can buy tickets at the show but get there early and learn more here.
Once abandoned to the wilds of public domain DVD sets, Messiah of Evil was for a time the gold amongst the dross, a film of incredible power. Hidden amongst old television shows, near-unwatchable transfers of Spanish horror and video store-era throwaways, it held a haunting power. Did I see that? Is this movie real? Can I explain it to anyone who hasn’t seen it?
Today, Messiah of Evil isn’t just a legendary once-lost film returned to power. It’s a work of art that feels like it came from beyond the wall of sleep, the place where the Ancient Ones slumber until time untold to come back and reclaim their rightful and most horrible power.
You can watch Messiah of Evil on several levels. On the most basic, it’s a film about Arietty (the never before or since more lovely Marianna Hill) attempting to find her lost artist father in the cursed town of Point Dume, California.
It’s also a zombie movie of sorts, made in the wake of Night of the Living Dead yet uninfluenced by it, where an entire town slowly becomes something like the living dead. As they bleed from the eyes and lose all sensation, they begin to crave meat from any source, be it an entire grocery store’s meat department, mice or human flesh. Once they give in to their transformation, they light fires on the shore, as their ritual of The Waiting anticipates the Dark Stranger’s return to glory, leading them toward taking over the rest of reality.
Or maybe it’s about something else. Is it about the final days of the class struggle that started in the 60s? The zombies nearly all wear suits while their targets, like collector of legends Thom (Michael Greer, who would go on to provide the voice for Bette Davis after she quit the film Wicked Stepmother) and his two lovers, Toni (Joy Bang, who worked with talents like Roger Vadim, Norman Mailer and Woody Allen before Messiah) and Laura (The Price isRight model Anitra Ford), are free love visions of style and sophistication. Yet the Dark Stranger cuts through class, even turning cop upon cop near the climax.
Parts of the film were never fully realized, but that doesn’t matter. Some critics complain that major plot points and the lead characters’ motivations are never fully explained. Even the most normal people in this film act like the strangest characters in others. At no point does it feel like we’re watching a movie set in our reality.
I don’t want that.
This is what I want. A transmission from another place where our surrealism is their everyday.
Messiah of Evil was created in an environment that will never exist again — the New Hollywood that starts with traditional studios panicking as their blockbusters and musicals would stall at the box office, while films like Easy Rider succeeded. Suddenly, deeply personal films would be made within the studio or even exploitation systems. Indeed, the previously mentioned Night of the Living Dead is packed with politics and social commentary, things only hinted at in past horror and science fiction films. This trend would die with Jaws and Star Wars. Yet at this point, as this film’s commentary track by Kim Newman and Stephen Thrower reminds us, even the creators of the blockbusters that changed entertainment forever, all the way back then, all wanted to be artists. And in a moment of true irony, the creators of this film — the husband-and-wife team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz — would go on to direct Howard the Duck and write American Graffiti andIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for Goerge Lucas.
This is a movie where the heroine finds herself in the throes of undead transformation, throwing up mouthfuls of insects while the shade of her father begs her to not tell the world what she knows before he attacks her. After murdering everyone else in their path, the dead things of Point Dume don’t kill her. No, they resign her to an even more horrible fate: she must spread the legend further so that once the Dark Stranger arrives, more of reality is receptive to his grasp. She ends the film in a mental institution, knowing that one day soon, the end of everything we hold dear will arrive.
I love that this movie once appeared in DVD bundles easily available in K-Marts and WalMarts, places where normal people would find this asynchronous transmission from another place and time and wonder what the hell they were watching. Much like the infection of Point Dume or Arietty spreading the infection into other towns, it found the right people. It always discovers the best way to transmit its message to those most willing to spread its legend. It survives, no matter what, despite not being finished, despite age, despite being lost for so long.
How wonderful it is to have what was once occult brought into the light and yet it loses nothing of its infernal power. In fact, it retains its power now, all the furtive watches and evangelists that loved this movie and spread that message.
BONUS: Listen to the commentary track that I did with Bill Van Ryn from Drive-In Asylum here:
I love having people over to our house to watch movies. However, some folks don’t get to watch the really strange films in our collection. They have to make it through a test to see if they can hang. I’ve had the misfortune of trying to explain Beyond the Valley of the Dolls to people and get angry, then sad, then angry again when they just don’t get it. If you make it through my cinematic ring of fire, the journey through excess and madness and horror, then and only then are you greeted by the final challenge: 1973’s epic freakout The Baby.
This isn’t a movie that I’ve known about forever. Quite to the contrary — I discovered it two years ago when the trailer played during one of the all-night drive-in events at the Riverside Drive-In. The blast of strangeness in that trailer was enough to get Becca and I repeating the dialogue for weeks: “What have you done with my Baby?”
Luckily, Bill from Groovy Doom/Drive-In Asylum had a copy that he was only too happy to bring to our house. Too often these days, we’re greeted with too much hype for movies, with statements like, “If you don’t love this movie, you don’t understand cinema!” and “This movie shook me to my very core!” Well, I can honestly say that The Baby has destroyed my mind in a way that no film made before or since ever has.
Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer, The Loved One) is a social worker who has just been assigned to the incredibly strange Wadsworth family. There’s Mrs. Wadsworth (Ruth Roman, who not only starred in Strangers on a Train, but survived the sinking of the Andrea Doria), the strong-willed mother. Her daughters Alba (Susanne Zenor, who was the original Samantha in the pilot of TV’s Three’s Company before Suzanne Somers took over the role), who teaches tennis, and Germaine (the transcendent Marianna Hill, Messiah of Evil, Schizoid, BloodBeach), who occasionally acts in TV commercials when she’s not looking like a maniac. And finally, there’s Baby (David Manzy), a twentysomething man who doesn’t walk or talk and who has been raised as an infantilized adult.
You just read that right. This is a movie about a grown-up baby that sits in a crib and cries, but not just as cries. The original track containing baby sounds that Manzy worked so hard to craft during the filming was lost, so the voice of an actual baby was used. It’s disconcerting to say the very least. Add in that the actor completely shaved his body for the role and you have the foundations for a movie that’s more than a little left of center.
Ann is driven to improve the lives of her cases, but Baby is a special case. Perhaps too special to Ann, as she’s recently recovering from a severe auto accident that had a serious effect on her husband. The Wadsworth family totally depends on Baby for most of their income and as a result, won’t allow him to grow into an adult. And it seems like Ann could change all that, as she discovers that Baby’s current state is the result of neglect.
“Baby doesn’t talk. Baby doesn’t walk.” Baby also isn’t allowed to do things by himself, either being beaten, cattle prodded or restrained when he does anything against the rules. Even when Ann shows the family that Baby has the capacity for growth, she’s instantly rebuffed.
If all of the above was all that this movie would be about, it would still rank amongst the oddest ever made. But it gets much stranger. You see, nearly every woman who meets Baby wants to possess him. And some often want to have sex with him, like the sitter who gets into his crib and allows him to nurse from her. The Wadsworths come back home to this scene and proceed to annihilate the young girl and beat Baby into further submission. And even Baby’s sisters may love him a little more than siblings should.
Finally, the simmering discord between Ann and Baby’s family comes to a head on the night of Baby’s birthday party — which is the strangest one committed to film since perhaps Jessabelle the cat’s celebration in The Sentinel. That said, any party that has Michael Pataki as a guest is one that I want to be at!
After escaping the murderous intent of the Wadsworths, Ann finally succeeds in taking Baby away. Rather than turning him over to an institution, she keeps him at her house and then sends his family photos of their manchild doing adult things like standing up straight.
This sends the Wadsworth clan into a murderous tailspin, as they head for Ann’s house with killing in mind. However, she and her mother-in-law aren’t willing to give up their new guest without a fight.
Even though this film was made over forty years ago, I’m not giving you the ending here. I want you to see it for yourself with no preparation whatsoever.
Now, after reading all of the above, you have to be thinking — surely The Baby is an unrated affair or at worst it got an R, right? Nope. This is a PG movie. The 1970’s did not care at all about children, blasting them with both barrels of bonkers with movies like this, The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane and It’s Alive all getting just a simple Parental Guidance suggested label.
Here’s the next surprise: The Baby wasn’t an underground film. Nope, it was a mainstream release directed by Ted Post, who directed numerous TV series like Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone and 178 episodes of Peyton Place, as well as Hang ‘Em High, Magnum Force, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and the TV movies Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilateand Cagney and Lacey, which led to the series. The dark nature of this film kept Post away for a year before writer Abe Polsky was able to talk him into getting behind the lens.
The Severin blu ray of this film was a great package, complete with informative interviews with Post and Manzy. Arrow Video is releasing a new version this week with even more extras, including newly commissioned artwork by The Twins of Evil, deep commentary by Travis Crawford, interviews with Marianna Hill and one of the set painters and a discussion with film professor Rebekah McKendry on the influence of the film. It’s a great package that truly does this movie justice.
Back to the hype engine that sours so many on so many movies. Often, you’ll read things about how movies have permanently changed lives and scoff. I’m telling you that the way that I view movies and live has been forever altered by this movie. It’s hard for me to find another film that can match it for sheer audacity and bizarre subject matter. However, no words that I write can do it justice. You must watch it for yourself and be changed by the act of viewing it.
Lindsay Finch (Mary Charlotte Wilcox, The Beast of the Yellow Nightand Psychic Killer) loves to go to funerals, where she mourns and then kisses the dead men passionately after everyone else leaves. Throw in a theme song that sounds like it comes out of James Bond while we see flashbacks of her relationship with her dead father and visiting his grave and pigtails and I’m all in.
She has swinging hippie parties at her pad and her friend Wade (Christopher Stone, the late husband of Dee Wallace who appeared with her in Cujo and The Howling) tries to get with her. Just when it seems she’s giving in to his makeout moves, she screams at him to stop and he calls her a bitch, because this is 1973. She dreams of her father in yellow hued flashbacks and hugs a stuffed animal.
Later, she goes through the funeral notices to find the services for young men. We then meet Fred McSweeney, a mortician, as he picks up a male prostitute. That job is just a cover for his true love — a Satanic coven that meets at night, inside the mortuary, where they have orgies with dead bodies. McSweeney takes the young man to his workplace where he pumps the manwhore full of embalming fluid while he’s still alive, all while Lindsay goes to another funeral where she tries to make out with Bobby. She’s surprised by Alex (Lyle Waggoner, TV’s The Carol Burnett Show and Wonder Woman, as well as the honor of being the first nude centerfold in Playgirl and the appointed mayor of Encino, California), the man’s brother.
Speaking of that embalming scene, it goes on and on and on, with the young man screaming, “I’m blind!” over and over. It’s nearly campy instead of frightening. To say this film has an issue with tone is an understatement.
Lindsay sneaks out to Bobby’s funeral, where she starts to associate Alex with her father. He’s a rich gallery owner and they begin a romance — one she refuses to consummate, even after they are eventually married. Every time she sees him, we get yellow hued flashbacks with a music box soundtrack of her playing with her father. But more about that in a little, OK?
McSweeney speaks to Lindsay after he catches her at a funeral, telling her that he has a group that she should join. Yet she tries to remain normal, even going on a date with Wade that fails. That’s when she decides to see what McSweeney’s group is all about.
She walks into an orgy with the dead, which freaks her out enough to go back home. Then she and Alex fall in love with no dialogue, just a montage. It’s a strange part of an incredibly strange film, with this happy go lucky relationship coming out of nowhere in a film otherwise about sex with dead people.
Lindsay keeps talking to the cult and ends up getting a dead body of her very own. But Wade follows her and is killed by McSweeney. She screams in horror. This scene wasn’t n the original script, nor was the Satanic group in the one that follows, but were used to pad out the film and add more horror elements so that it would potentially play drive-ins better.
Again — tone being all over the place — we’re treated to a nude cult disrobing Wade’s corpse and having their way with it before Lindsay awakes screaming. But the marriage isn’t working out well, with Alex following her all over town and their maid — complete with the most stereotypical Irish accent ever — telling him that his wife spends her days at her father’s grave, wearing pigtails and dressed like a little girl. You should see the look on Alex’s face when he catches her as she yells, “This is not your place, go away!”
Alex tries to get Lindsay to go on a holiday to visit his mother, but he discovers a registered letter from McSweeney to his wife for a meeting at 10 PM. He follows her to the mortuary where he discovers his wife surrounded by nude devil worshippers as she makes love to a dead body. She looks frightened and then McSweeney murders Alex, which calms her.
McSweeney drugs her as she lies in her bed, then brings in her husband, now embalmed so he can last forever, finally a man who she can be attracted to: the combination of her father — who we see in flashback being shot accidentally by her — and the man she fell in love with. The editing here — combined with dissonant instruments and a remix of the title theme — is crazy, like this film has suddenly become Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
We see intercut shots of Lindsay getting under the covers with her dead husband and her getting in the coffin with her father as everything goes sepia tone and the theme song returns.
Love Me Deadly isn’t for everyone. It’s one of those films that I hesitate to recommend to normal folks. But it is the kind of movie I text people about in the middle of the night.
Code Red has released this film on DVD, but it’s still rather hard to find. It’s up on YouTube, where I found it. It’s…well, it’s something. If you enjoyed The Baby, well, then you’re on the right wavelength of this one.
I think more movies should have exclamation marks in their titles. I also believe that more movies should have Brother Theodore in them, so hey — Message Parlor Murders! is two for two.
Detective Rizotti and O’Mara are hunting the killer of numerous massage parlor workers — one of them, Rosie, often gave Rizotti the rub down — and now O’Mara is getting close to Rosie’s roommate Gwen (Sandra Peabody, The Last House on the Left, Legacy of Satan, Teenage Hitchhikers). Of course, she’s the kind of girl who only appears in movies, someone who doesn’t rub nor tug, but instead acts like an analyst for her clients. Maybe their co-pays didn’t cover therapy or we hadn’t yet worked out the mental health side of care in 1973, but going to a massage girl at the Lust Lounge for psychotherapy seems like not the best idea I’ve heard today.
Maybe the killer is a man they call Mr. Creepy. It could also be someone trying to work out the seven deadly sins 22 years before Kevin Spacey. That theory seems to work, but hey, the seventies were a downer time and perhaps not everyone makes it out of this alive.
Somehow, this was also released as Massage Parlor Hookers! with the horror parts cut out. How long was that movie, 22 minutes?
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