Simply Perfect

Don't Believe the Hype

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Tony works in a mannequin factory in grimy NYC. He has this strange sexual attraction to the mannequins. One day he brings home a head from one of them. In his spare time he uses binoculars to spy on topless women sunbathing on the tops of buildings. Then he walks into womens apartments (in this universe no one locks their doors), kills them and has sex with their bodies (not shown). There's also a ton of pointless female nudity which has nothing to do with the plot.There's nothing wrong with showing women dressing and undressing--this is an adult film after all and it has its audience. But when you throw in violence and necrophilia it gets pretty sick. Thankfully the killings themselves aren't that bad--only two are shown and they're just strangulations. That aside the film is painfully dull (I fast forwarded through most of it) and no reason is given for Tony's actions. There's very little dialogue and the guy who plays Tony actually isn't a bad actor. But this is a slow, sick and deadly dull movie. A 1 all the way.

SEX KILLER, THE (1967) *** (out of four)After a successful date with a mannequin head, the shy and lonely Tony decides to move towards the real thing. After being rejected by several women, he starts stalking the streets of Manhattan strangling women and then humping them. This early shocker is actually very well made and the acting isn't too bad. There isn't too much dialogue, which is good thing, but there are plenty of naked women and a nice music score. Something Weird Video has been a haven full of weird, sex films like this one but this here is one of the best out there. Running under an hour, the film gets right to the point and keeps the viewer entertained throughout.

This film is a real snooze, pretty much the empty filler between the more meaty movies on Something Weird's 3-movie DVD set on serial killers. I have seen a few Barry Mahon movies (probably the 'best' of which was "The Beast That Killed Women" and that's not saying much), and the man had no decent casts, no thrilling stories. He had flat-out NO discernible talent. Although his films were well shot, most of them require toothpicks to prop up the IL' eyelids in order to stay awake until the end. Terminally boring, although the film's one redeemable feature is the grimy NYC locations. Buyers of the DVD should just skip this one altogether.

From the sick sixties comes this little film, concerning Tony, a frustrated loner who works in a mannequin factory and uses binoculars to spy on topless sunbathing women. To stave off his loneliness, Tony steals a mannequin head from a beauty salon and takes it to a bar. From there it's on to killing women and having sex(off screen)with their corpses. In between the various murders we're treated to various women lounging around topless and changing clothes, along with lingering, fetishistic shots of rows of naked mannequins in the factory. Of interest to students of grindhouse cinema and people who like their nudies gritty and grim.