This ultra-cheap psycho-thriller (and I use the word 'thriller' very loosely here) is the kind of flick that deserves a place on a lot of 'worst movies' list, and yet it's kind of fun to watch bad films like this that fail hopelessly to achieve even a degree of the quality to which they aspire.
Sixties B-movie icon William Kerwin plays Bill, a tortured artist with a brutal way of dealing with his fidgety models. We first meet Bill sketching a hot chick on a rock who keeps tossing her hair as he's trying to sketch her. He grabs a handy spear gun and shoots her. Unluckily for Bill, he's spotted by a passer-by and is now on the run for his life. He gets a job with Arlene (Jean Christopher), a rich young woman, as a handyman at the house in which she is staying alone. Now, a few things about Arlene: Firstly, we learn early on that she is something of a tease. We see her tying Neil Sedaka in knots (yeah, **that** Neil Sedaka: I don't know what he's doing here either and neither, I reckon, does he) and upsetting her sister by posing in her bikini by the pool and getting Sedaka to rub suntan lotion into her back. Then she stages an impromptu striptease at her sister's party before sneaking into Sedaka's bedroom to give him a warm and generous sending off present. Arlene is real bad news; she glides around that big house in a perpetual state of sensuous ecstasy, sipping wine in her nightie and swimming in the nude. She also has a great body. In fact every woman in the film has a great body. That's the selling point, you see: watching hot chicks get iced (literally). Anyway, because of these man-eating habits of Arlene's we don't really get that concerned when Bill starts stalking her after watching her indulging in a bit of skinny-dipping.
It takes director Erick Santamaria forever to set up Arlene's murder at least half the movie but once Bill has done her in he sets off at a frenetic pace, killing every shapely female who has the misfortune to pass his way. Strangely, the pace of the movie still crawls along and, with Arlene and her bikinis out of the way, there often isn't anything happening on the screen to keep us even remotely interested. Well, that's not quite true, because there's always the comedy-editing job to keep us amused. I mean background walls change colour in this film it's as if they ran out of film so inserted a shot from a different scene to fill the gaps. The noisy soundtrack is also a constant irritation, and the plot has more holes than a lump of Swiss cheese. After all that, there's quite a neat twist ending, but sadly Santamaria, whose only effort this film was, even manages to mess up this last chance of at least partially redeeming himself.
As I said, this film is so relentlessly cheesy it's sort of fun but only if you're a lover of bad movies that are trying to be good
Sixties B-movie icon William Kerwin plays Bill, a tortured artist with a brutal way of dealing with his fidgety models. We first meet Bill sketching a hot chick on a rock who keeps tossing her hair as he's trying to sketch her. He grabs a handy spear gun and shoots her. Unluckily for Bill, he's spotted by a passer-by and is now on the run for his life. He gets a job with Arlene (Jean Christopher), a rich young woman, as a handyman at the house in which she is staying alone. Now, a few things about Arlene: Firstly, we learn early on that she is something of a tease. We see her tying Neil Sedaka in knots (yeah, **that** Neil Sedaka: I don't know what he's doing here either and neither, I reckon, does he) and upsetting her sister by posing in her bikini by the pool and getting Sedaka to rub suntan lotion into her back. Then she stages an impromptu striptease at her sister's party before sneaking into Sedaka's bedroom to give him a warm and generous sending off present. Arlene is real bad news; she glides around that big house in a perpetual state of sensuous ecstasy, sipping wine in her nightie and swimming in the nude. She also has a great body. In fact every woman in the film has a great body. That's the selling point, you see: watching hot chicks get iced (literally). Anyway, because of these man-eating habits of Arlene's we don't really get that concerned when Bill starts stalking her after watching her indulging in a bit of skinny-dipping.
It takes director Erick Santamaria forever to set up Arlene's murder at least half the movie but once Bill has done her in he sets off at a frenetic pace, killing every shapely female who has the misfortune to pass his way. Strangely, the pace of the movie still crawls along and, with Arlene and her bikinis out of the way, there often isn't anything happening on the screen to keep us even remotely interested. Well, that's not quite true, because there's always the comedy-editing job to keep us amused. I mean background walls change colour in this film it's as if they ran out of film so inserted a shot from a different scene to fill the gaps. The noisy soundtrack is also a constant irritation, and the plot has more holes than a lump of Swiss cheese. After all that, there's quite a neat twist ending, but sadly Santamaria, whose only effort this film was, even manages to mess up this last chance of at least partially redeeming himself.
As I said, this film is so relentlessly cheesy it's sort of fun but only if you're a lover of bad movies that are trying to be good