Purely Joyful Movie!

Am I Missing Something?

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

This masterpiece of sexploitation opens with nightclub singer Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) in a fringed red suit, lip-synching to a bombastic pop song that makes Tom Jones seem understated. He becomes involved, both professionally and sexually, with Andrea (Dyanne Thorne), the buxom wife of Martin (Joel Marston), the wheelchair- bound owner of a major record label. Andrea is both alcoholic and sex-starved, of which Tony takes full advantage in the hope that it will advance his singing career.Peter Carpenter, who co-produced, must have had a whale-sized ego. How else to explain the lingering crotch shot as he lights a cigarette or the lengthy butt shot when he steps out of the shower (without a drop of water on him)? Not to mention a nude side-angle shot in which Tony's leg just barely obscures his one-eyed wonderworm. If he hadn't died suddenly in late 1971, Carpenter could have been a Playgirl centerfold.He also sang his own songs, and what songs they were! One seems to feature the lyric, "Life beans turning into lima beans." (I probably heard it wrong.) Incredibly, the music was produced by veteran songwriter Hal Davis, and a closing credit states that the recordings were "Courtesy of Motown Records." Were Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, and Stevie Wonder not bringing in enough cash to satisfy Berry Gordy, Jr?Some of my favorite parts of POINT OF TERROR: a sex scene on the beach using split screens to show the fornicators at different angles (I counted six); Andrea topless in a swimming pool--with a rack so big, it's amazing she got her head under the water; Andrea's husband Martin, who can't seem to keep still, even though he's crippled from the waist down; when Martin becomes so angry that he tries to beat the crap out of Andrea from his wheelchair (it doesn't go well); when Tony goes home with Andrea's drunken pal Fran (Leslie Simms); when Tony goes horseback riding with Andrea's stepdaughter Helayne (Lory Hansen) and gives her a horsey-ride of his own; Tony also knocks up his main girlfriend Sally (Paula Mitchell), but dismisses the pregnancy as her problem. Sally, however, doesn't see it that way and gets her point across to Tony in a most severe manner. Let's just say, he'll never make another record.I've heard this film described as "Russ Meyer lite," a fitting description when it's compared to Meyer's overblown BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. I like POINT OF TERROR better though, if for no other reason, that there's no male character who shows himself as having female breasts and changes his name to "Superwoman." (I wish I had made that up, but no.)

Like its earlier companion feature "Blood Mania," 1971's "Point of Terror" was plainly a vanity piece for writer-producer-star Peter Carpenter, a Vegas hoofer whose death remains shrouded in mystery to this day, dates as varied as late 1970, late '71, even the late 70s-early 80s (this last posted by actress Leslie Simms). As an actor, he displays neither emotion nor charisma, and appears to be miming his three songs, all non hits from (believe it or not) Motown! ("Lifebeats" was actually recorded by The Supremes, minus Diana Ross). Imagine a singer so bad he has nightmares on the beach about his singing, and his apartment looks like his decorator was 'Bela Lugosi!' Another surprising name prominently featured in the opening credits is future Oscar winning editor Verna Fields, who earned her Academy Award for her work on Spielberg's "Jaws" just a few years later. The director is Alex Nicol, who at least had a genuine horror title on his slim resume behind the camera, 1958's "The Screaming Skull" (he had far more credits as an actor). Leslie Simms fondly recalls her working with Peter Carpenter, who may have been a likable fellow off camera, but insisted on playing lowdown sleazeballs in his own films. He juggles three different women in this picture, even flirting with the attractive Miss Simms, yet insists on rushing off to get married even after one girl announces she's pregnant! Dyanne Thorne (whom I first saw in STAR TREK's "A Piece of the Action") had already appeared with Carpenter in 1970's "Love Me Like I Do," here playing the man hungry wife of wheelchair bound record mogul Joel Marston, best remembered by genre buffs for 1957's "The Disembodied," plus his film debut in the 1949 Charlie Chan finale "The Sky Dragon" ("Blood Mania" had featured Jacqueline Dalya, from 1941's "Charlie Chan in Rio"). For all the wildly misleading ads depicting this as a horror film, the only scene that qualifies is Dyanne's bloody murder of Marston's first wife, just a brief flashback. Considering all her misdeeds, her character just isn't as maniacal as she should be, as one reviewer commented, the whole thing remains curiously tame, rather than outrageously lurid (it's never boring however). "Point of Terror," being part of Crown International's television package, debuted on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater on Feb 26 1977, paired with second feature "House of Horrors" (1946), broadcast twice more over the next 4 years ("Blood Mania" earlier debuted on Nov 27 1976, paired with 1972's "Gargoyles").

Lounge singer Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) thinks he has hit the big time when he hooks up with Andrea (Dyanne Thorne), wife and talent scout for wheelchair bound music producer Martin. What Tony doesn't count on is Andrea having more interest in flings and offing her husband than having Tony shatter the Billboard top 10. Throw in her bizarre past (Martin's wife was murdered mysteriously & his daughter hates Andrea) and it looks like Andrea is one tough femme fatale.Pushed as a horror flick (check out the poster), this is actually a pretty bland thriller-sexploitation melodrama. The film's only fantasy type element is that Trelos wakes up at the end and discovers it was all a dream...right before meeting Andrea for the first time. Cue ominous music. Lead Carpenter sure seems to like himself as he produced and co-wrote the screenplay in which he sings and shows of his muscles a lot. He also co-wrote and starred in BLOOD MANIA the year previous to this. Future ILSA star Thorne is good as the manipulative Andrea though.

Lurid thriller from the Crown International Pictures vault provides one of the sleaziest tales of wanton lust, infidelity, and unscrupulous greed ever lensed, with a few violent on-screen murders thrown in for good measure. The inimitable Dyanne Thorne is in it, and that fact alone makes it worthy of investigation.A tacky Tony Bennett-style lounge singer abandons his pregnant girlfriend when he becomes intimately involved with the bitchy, high-strung wife(and soon-to-be widow) of a bigshot record industry mogul. Just to prove what a no-class opportunist scumbag this creep is, he soon takes to screwing her dim-witted stepdaughter as well.If you're on a hunt for cheap thrills in the immortal 70s drive-in/grindhouse tradition, Look no further than POINT OF TERROR...it's such an uncurbed blast of raffish overindulgence that it makes something as famously profligate as BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS appear subdued by comparison. Surprisingly, it actually works in a fallacious, all-wrong sort of way, though a preposterous non-ending cripples it significantly. A potentially gratifying watch for fans of excessive, tawdry thrillers, and such a distinctly 1970s relic that you might come away from it smelling like Hai-Karate.4/10