Stephen King once described this as one of his favorite movies, caused a stir back in the 70’s because of the brutality, I think it was even released under an X rating, which probably disappointed all the horn-dogs going in thinking this was some kind of kink porn flick. The movie is another addition to my quest to watch every horror movie on the UK’s “Video Nasties” list.
Yes, I know that there were similarly-named serial killers in 1979. Everyone knows that. This is not that. Those guys weren’t even named after this movie retrospectively. However, a movie about those guys would be promising – they were total monsters! The screenplay was loosely based on a killer in Minnesota (because he used tools, and that’s where the similarity ends), and was part of the glut of slasher movies that came in the wake of 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
70’s-tastic slasher movie set in Los Angeles, opens up with a home invasion followed by a power drill attack on a drunk lady with a slick home bar. I’d LOVE to build myself a bar like that! 70’s suburban home bar, that’s my jam! Maybe once we get our work lives stabilized Mido and I will get a small place in this neighborhood, and set up a 70’s’riffic bar in there. We’re talking shag carpeting, those amber glass Turkish lamps that hang from the ceiling, oh wait, or those lamps that look like flowers on a stalk with the bulbs inside – WAIT! What about those decorative lights that are a cluster of monofilaments coming out of some chrome ball and all the little ends light up? Yeas! We NEED that!! And the little bird with the red liquid in it’s butt that looks like it’s drinking out of a glass. A lava lamp would be required, because, you know, Virginia is for Lavas! Then some light-up neon wall sconce mirror things advertising Schlitz and Schaefer beers, some tacky glassware and other decorations we find in a small-town thrift store, and a whole bunch of old-timey swizzle sticks! Shit, can’t get that bar soon enough! Invite friends over, feed them stiff drinks while they munch on appetizers I set using Jell-O molds, playing Grand Funk Railroad and Three Dog Night on a burlap-covered speaker I find on eBay, our place will be The Coolest joint for sleazy retro bar drink parties!
Oh but yeah, he totally kills her up good. Super bloody. That was fun, let’s not waste any time, on to the next victim. How about a shower scene? These movies all started with Psycho, gotta involve a shower scene in there! Oh man, psych-out is more like it – no shower scene! Starts it up, changes her mind, turns it back off again then takes off her clothes long enough to get some booby shots for the camera, then goes through the closet to find some outfit in what can only be described as a wardrobe inherited from someone named “Aunt Peg.” Killer comes in, drags her out through the stucco-walled hallway and kills her in the stairwell.
Stucco! That’s what else I need for that bar! Stucco walls with the swirly finger painty effect on them! Badass!! On second thought, let’s bail on the Grand Funk and Three Dog music, I’m going all-in on Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
Three bodies in 15 minutes, now we’re introduced to the police detectives who will be chasing this guy for the next hour. Sure hope the shirts are loud, the lapels and ties are extra wide and the shoes are brown and glossy! Mustaches, we GOTTA have mustaches! Mustaches and aviator sunglasses, and one of ’em needs to be driving an orange Ford Maverick.
Keep a sharp eye out for the sexy bath time fingerbangin’ scene… I mean yeah, the sexytime bubble bath lady IS really hot, I can’t imagine how many sexually-repressed teenaged boys were dying for this movie to make it to Betamax and then bide their time ’til Mom and Dad went off to bowling league for the night. Nah, besides that, he nails the hell out of her (with a nail gun) to the sounds of a romantic 70’sey country duet song on the quadrophonic.
Some more murder and then a kidnapping and teenage brother gets involved in the hunt, joined by Will from Land of the Lost… so for all the GenX’ers who are out there thinking “Where do I know that face from?” – yep, main cast member from a Kroft Brothers‘ kid show is now in a blood-and-tits B horror movie. Kind of what you might expect his career trajectory might look like. As for Holly, she did Land of the Lost, then spent the next 50 years writing books about being on Land of the Lost and going to pop cultural conventions signing autographed photos of herself as a tween. So again, what you might expect.
Speaking of actors from longish ago, ever see a movie like this one, populated by a cast of sexy gorgeous Hollywood women, flailing around naked and getting stabbed and violated and stuff to an audience of proto-gorehounds, and think to yourself “That lady is someone’s grandma now.” Right? There are a whole host of Gen-Z kids out there who are explicitly being told “Whatever you do, don’t watch that movie where gran’ gets slaughtered naked in a bubble bath.”
The killer kidnaps a girl that he, for whatever reason, has decided is his dead daughter. He knows his daughter is dead, and yet he talks to the girl like both things are true. “What’s it like being dead?” Shit like that. Kinda psycho, but still kinda interesting. That said, he stops killing randos once he becomes looney babysitter man, so that’s a bit of a drag.
70’s horror is great stuff. Decidedly unpolished by modern standards, it’s like they went into it with the intention of becoming cult horror thirty or forty years later. Not sure why it’s one of Stephen King’s favorites, though. Maybe ’cause he’s old. He was in his prime when this flick was made, so perhaps he’s viewing it through the same lens my fellow GenX’ers use when they declare Whitesnake to be the best rock band ever.
Good movie, though. Mido slept through most of it, but she’s a judgemental bitch.