The third collaboration between director Herschell Gordon Lewis and the 'sultan of sleaze', producer Dave Friedman, is a ramshackle and shoddy affair not worthy of the infamous status it has attained over the years. This instantly forgettable movie is scuppered from the start by the amateurish production levels, from the inaudible sound (in which the character's dialogue is drowned by the sound of crashing waves) to the static camera and the wooden acting on display. Sadly there isn't even the benefit of many gruesome gore scenes for horror fans to enjoy, as this is a very small-scale film there are only two or three deaths on view.
The only incidental pleasures come from viewing the film in the frame of mind that you are watching a "so-bad-it's-good" type of film, and from this viewpoint there is some fun to be had. The first is the acting of Gordon Oas-Heim (or so the credits say) as the deranged artist; his "acting" consists of periods of quiet brooding followed by some extreme overacting. He's pretty poor, yes, but he shows more emotion than the rest of the wooden cast put together. Halfway through the eighty-minute production a quartet of obnoxious teenagers arrive on the scene to participate in a beach party, and the film seems to chart their endless amusements. It has to be said that the sight of these overgrown actors and actresses parading around in red swimming costumes and joking together is pretty funny, although they quickly outstay their welcome! The occasional line of dialogue is hilarious, like when one of them discovers a buried corpse on the beach : "Holy Bananas! It's a girl's leg!".
The first of the few gore scenes comes when Adam Sorg - the artist - decides to do in his girlfriend by driving a sharp implement into the side of her face (we're later treated to a lovely closeup of her gory countenance as it is devoured by insects). Later on, he attacks a man in his speedboat, impaling him with a spear before driving over his body! A female is chained up in a back room, and Sorg arrives to squeeze blood from her intestine in a scene which disturbingly resembles a man milking a cow! Sadly, other than the villain's own bloody demise, this is as much gore as the film has to offer.
The ending unforgivably lets the partying teens survive for another day, but still offers some amusement to be had from the confrontation between madman and teenage boy, who eventually shoots the psycho in the head with his own gun, conveniently left lying around! The loose plot is cribbed from Corman's A BUCKET OF BLOOD, so the it doesn't even have the saving grace of being original either. My advice is to pick up one of the duo's other, better films such as BLOOD FEAST, and give this boring amateurish obscurity a miss at all costs!
The only incidental pleasures come from viewing the film in the frame of mind that you are watching a "so-bad-it's-good" type of film, and from this viewpoint there is some fun to be had. The first is the acting of Gordon Oas-Heim (or so the credits say) as the deranged artist; his "acting" consists of periods of quiet brooding followed by some extreme overacting. He's pretty poor, yes, but he shows more emotion than the rest of the wooden cast put together. Halfway through the eighty-minute production a quartet of obnoxious teenagers arrive on the scene to participate in a beach party, and the film seems to chart their endless amusements. It has to be said that the sight of these overgrown actors and actresses parading around in red swimming costumes and joking together is pretty funny, although they quickly outstay their welcome! The occasional line of dialogue is hilarious, like when one of them discovers a buried corpse on the beach : "Holy Bananas! It's a girl's leg!".
The first of the few gore scenes comes when Adam Sorg - the artist - decides to do in his girlfriend by driving a sharp implement into the side of her face (we're later treated to a lovely closeup of her gory countenance as it is devoured by insects). Later on, he attacks a man in his speedboat, impaling him with a spear before driving over his body! A female is chained up in a back room, and Sorg arrives to squeeze blood from her intestine in a scene which disturbingly resembles a man milking a cow! Sadly, other than the villain's own bloody demise, this is as much gore as the film has to offer.
The ending unforgivably lets the partying teens survive for another day, but still offers some amusement to be had from the confrontation between madman and teenage boy, who eventually shoots the psycho in the head with his own gun, conveniently left lying around! The loose plot is cribbed from Corman's A BUCKET OF BLOOD, so the it doesn't even have the saving grace of being original either. My advice is to pick up one of the duo's other, better films such as BLOOD FEAST, and give this boring amateurish obscurity a miss at all costs!