Overrated

From my favorite movies..

An Exercise In Nonsense

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

This movie is not nearly as good as Jorge Grau's very similar "Pena del Muerte", but it is in English (or in British anyway). It is surprisingly sleazy for a British film of that time period with a generous amount of depravity on display. A modern-day Jack the Ripper is stalking the mini-skirted young lasses of Swinging London. A hedonistic youth who is (quite unaccountably) a metaphoric ladykiller is suspected of being the real one by the lead detective on the case. Not surprisingly though, the real killer is someone much more entrenched in the establishment, which the detective hero only discovers after his pretty young wife has become a potential victim.This movie is similar to the seemingly reactionary but actually very subversive and anti-authoritarian movies Pete Walker would be making five years later ("House of the Whipcord", "The Confessional"). But unfortunately it is pretty ham-handedly executed and just not very good. It does offer a view of Swinging London at the time that it was all actually happening, but it is a rather myopic view and is seen more from the perspective of the moralistic detective and dirty old rotter magistrate than from the hip youth of the the era (the only real nude scene for instance is a skanky stripper doffing it all for some gaping oldsters in a seedy nightclub). It is very sleazy, if you consider that a plus. And even though the identity of the killer is pretty apparent, the ending is memorable. It's not as hypocritical at least as many British films of the era that railed against jaded youth while missing no opportunity to look up their mini-skirts or inside their blouses. Worth a look anyway.

A rash of brutal slayings leads Scotland Yard investigators to a pompous mod hipster, but the true culprit may be a lot closer to home than anyone realizes. This glowering little slasher genre prototype is a leering and perverse cocktail of sexual depravity, and may be of more than just passing interest to fans of both gialli and lurid trash cinema. Briskly paced compared to many contemporaneous British thrillers, this one surprises with steady direction, credible performances, and occasional off-kilter camera-work which enhances the delirium of the grisly goings-on. One standout flaw is the film's weak conclusion...though not unsatisfactory, it's a tad anti-climatic and hurried. Pardonable inconsistencies aside, a very worthwhile watch. 6.5/10

This movie had some interesting ideas and twists. I thought everyone in the film was messed up and I wouldn't have minded if any of the suspects were "the one." Each suspect had his own perverted/sexist ideas about women so I honestly didn't know which creep did the murders.A sidenote: There is a striptease scene in the movie that I have seen in another horror movie. This exact striptease footage is from another movie, but I don't remember which one.All in all, it is an interesting film and I think it pushes some boundaries moreso than most other sex-maniac focused horror movies. There are parts of this movie (basically all the parts that took place in that little room with all the pictures) that were actually disturbing to me as a woman. Nearly all other sex maniac horror movies do not step over this line of discomfort. I say a movie that can cause discomfort like this is a successful movie in some ways. I give it a 5/10.

It's quite a bit of fun to see the several suspects each give into their urges. Sure there are plenty of sex scenes, but the real good moments involve a lot of forbidden red light district type stuff. Characters get off on leather pants, porno magazines, and underwear. There is some adventurous camera work that aids the creepy scenes. Not as artsy as Italian crime/horror, but fans of that genre will dig this movie.