***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Okay, I'm not your average reviewer. I'm a bit bent in the head...and elsewhere. I saw this film under another title, "Decoy for Terror", on TV in the mid 1970s when I was just a kid and twisted films like this were shown during the afternoon...and it left its mark on me.
I wanted to be an artist, and in this film our "anti-hero" Bill (William Kerwin), the "Playgirl Killer" is a tormented artist who attempts to paint a picture that will provide the key to his neuroses. His only problem (his ONLY problem?) is he can't get models to sit still long enough before he busts a gut and gets them giggling at him (no artist likes to be laughed at, y'know). And this is where Bill starts going on his killing spree...
The film starts with a set-piece killing and then gets bogged down in a lot of exposition -- but this is actually where the REAL fun begins! A great part of the time we spend with bored, wealthy, spoiled, rich-bitch, "Arlene" (Bill's main victim). She's an aggressive, shameless tease toward any man she comes in contact with. She loves to strike poses in her bikini by the pool (where she seduces a particularly unattractive Neil Sedaka (NO KIDDING, IT'S HIM) -- who later regales us with a toe-tapping dance hit, "Waterbug". Arlene crashes her wimpy pigtailed sister's go-go party by doing a provocative striptease in front of everybody (she has
nothing better to do, you see). She lounges around in her negligee sipping wine and plotting how to entrap hapless males, and ain't this the life!?!. Arlene is FABulous!!! Her dad refers to her as a "Lorelei" and makes sure to point out to her that One Of These Days her naughty nympho ways will be her undoing (the suspense builds!).
By the time our "Playgirl Killer" arrives on the scene (as a $15/day "handyman" Arlene hires to clean up her mansion, and rub oil on her back), Arlene is ripe for his picking. We don't develop much sympathy for the Playgirl Killer because he only discloses peripheral information about why he's so wacko. No terrible childhood trauma that he can cite as being the root of his terrible need to slaughter women in order to pose their bodies for his artwork. We get some excuse that he blacked out during a shipwreck, and that's about it. So, he's simply a two-dimensional sicko, but so what? This film isn't about sympathy, it's about kicks! And there are plenty to be had while our madman goes on a killing rampage in order to get the girls he implores to model for him Not To Move! One of his later victims seems completely air-headed as she takes off her clothes looking this way and that with a dumb lamb-to-the-slaughter smile on her face -- and she's wearing the biggest bra in the world! So you know what the filmmakers figured their big lure(s) would be in getting an audience to sit through this one. hehehe...
This low budget stuff is quite colorful and competently shot. The music is pure sleazy lounge stuff (TERRIFIC!!!). There's even another "SONG" sung in French...the production is Canadian, so that's where the French comes from (as well as the picturesque locations).
"Playgirl Killer" is one of the most awful, but most entertaining and memorable films I've ever seen (especially for its genre). It is listed as unavailable at iMDB and online merchants, so if I haven't lost you by now (haha) make a point of checking this one out. "Playgirl Killer" is a doozy that will have you snickering and howling -- tremendously fun shlock, especially if watched with a likeminded group of hecklers.
I wanted to be an artist, and in this film our "anti-hero" Bill (William Kerwin), the "Playgirl Killer" is a tormented artist who attempts to paint a picture that will provide the key to his neuroses. His only problem (his ONLY problem?) is he can't get models to sit still long enough before he busts a gut and gets them giggling at him (no artist likes to be laughed at, y'know). And this is where Bill starts going on his killing spree...
The film starts with a set-piece killing and then gets bogged down in a lot of exposition -- but this is actually where the REAL fun begins! A great part of the time we spend with bored, wealthy, spoiled, rich-bitch, "Arlene" (Bill's main victim). She's an aggressive, shameless tease toward any man she comes in contact with. She loves to strike poses in her bikini by the pool (where she seduces a particularly unattractive Neil Sedaka (NO KIDDING, IT'S HIM) -- who later regales us with a toe-tapping dance hit, "Waterbug". Arlene crashes her wimpy pigtailed sister's go-go party by doing a provocative striptease in front of everybody (she has
nothing better to do, you see). She lounges around in her negligee sipping wine and plotting how to entrap hapless males, and ain't this the life!?!. Arlene is FABulous!!! Her dad refers to her as a "Lorelei" and makes sure to point out to her that One Of These Days her naughty nympho ways will be her undoing (the suspense builds!).
By the time our "Playgirl Killer" arrives on the scene (as a $15/day "handyman" Arlene hires to clean up her mansion, and rub oil on her back), Arlene is ripe for his picking. We don't develop much sympathy for the Playgirl Killer because he only discloses peripheral information about why he's so wacko. No terrible childhood trauma that he can cite as being the root of his terrible need to slaughter women in order to pose their bodies for his artwork. We get some excuse that he blacked out during a shipwreck, and that's about it. So, he's simply a two-dimensional sicko, but so what? This film isn't about sympathy, it's about kicks! And there are plenty to be had while our madman goes on a killing rampage in order to get the girls he implores to model for him Not To Move! One of his later victims seems completely air-headed as she takes off her clothes looking this way and that with a dumb lamb-to-the-slaughter smile on her face -- and she's wearing the biggest bra in the world! So you know what the filmmakers figured their big lure(s) would be in getting an audience to sit through this one. hehehe...
This low budget stuff is quite colorful and competently shot. The music is pure sleazy lounge stuff (TERRIFIC!!!). There's even another "SONG" sung in French...the production is Canadian, so that's where the French comes from (as well as the picturesque locations).
"Playgirl Killer" is one of the most awful, but most entertaining and memorable films I've ever seen (especially for its genre). It is listed as unavailable at iMDB and online merchants, so if I haven't lost you by now (haha) make a point of checking this one out. "Playgirl Killer" is a doozy that will have you snickering and howling -- tremendously fun shlock, especially if watched with a likeminded group of hecklers.