| Title | Sketches of a Strangler |
| Origin | USA, 1978 |
| Genre | Thriller: Stalker |
| Director | Paul Leder |
| Starring | Allen Goorwitz, Meredith MacRae |
| Music | Arlon Ober |
| Blurb | A disturbed art student uses his desire to paint beautiful women as a guise to get them alone. These women of the night, prostitutes and exotic dancers, become the victims of his fits of passion. |
Here's an obscure offering from a straight-to-bargain-bin label I usually
wouldn't look at twice, but picking up the case and turning it over I was intrigued.
What is this thing? There are three very odd screenshots on the back.
A belly dancer, a woman robed like an angel, and a fat, pensive-looking looking man.
The effect is so endearingly amateurish I wondered if I'd come across a unique, no-budget, undiscovered gem.
After only a moment's watching I put those hopes to rest. This is obviously just some routine American TV thriller, though I was right to think "obscure" and "no-budget". I wondered why anyone would bother releasing it, but settled down to watch till the end with the usual grim determination I reserve for junk I've actually paid for. Amazingly, it turned out to be exactly the kind of awful species of delirium I dream of stumbling across. This is my pick for the first review on this blog, and possibly its first serious online review.
It's a cliched set-up. A glamorous but ageing prostitute
alone in a hotel room, a knock at the door, enter Jack (Allen Goorwitz), the shy thirtysomething fat boy who never grew up.
Some hesitant monosyllabic bargaining and they get down to business.
In a simple but very effective vignette he moves to strangle her, one-handed,
his face turning beetroot-red with the brute force required.
So we know who the serial killer is, how can he be stopped?
This prostitute has a twin sister (Meredith MacRae), a dowdy teacher who jets into LA
(accompanied by some groovy Seventies disco) to meet the detectives assigned to the case.
She resolves to avenge her sister by posing as a hooker to trap the killer before he strikes again.
Clearly this is a suicidally stupid idea (how's she going to recognise him? A-ha, by getting strangled of course!),
and she is firmly told so, but is determined to press ahead with her plan anyway.
What do we know about Jack? Well, he's an amateur artist, this hobby being his only way of meeting women.
Always totally unsuitable women too, tarts, strippers, and most memorably an ageing ex-starlet
earning crumbs as an artists' model.
He lives a comfortable life supported by matronly older sister Eileen.
She finds the lazy slob exasperating, but nevertheless dotes upon him.
Eileen is impressed by a crusading stage evangelist (she's the one pictured on the back cover in "angel" pose)
and the poor boy is badgered into leafleting for her on the streets.
Could it be that Jack is not the only one with sex problems? Perhaps mother problems too!
Those are the ingredients, what does director Paul Leder (I Dismember Mama, The Baby Doll Murders) make of them? Well, after a slow start, he slowly stirs the mix into a delightful, hilarious mess. Bad dialogue and worse acting only serve to bring his considerable visual flair into sharper focus. I'm sure he had a serious and suspenseful chiller in mind, and to the forgiving viewer this sincerity of intention brings humour and charm to a work that viewed objectively would be an embarrassing disaster.
A theatre hosts a bizarrely staged sermon against the "obscenity" of the "evening news".
A nightclub belly-dancer works her act into an absurd frenzy to impress the impassively sketching Jack.
A hackneyed breakfast-table scene with the detective's neglected, be-curlered wife ("I like young boys!")
brings on splutters of genuine laughter. Best of all, a twee and stilted piece of sitting-room flirting evolves
into a truly chilling scene of murder as grim music rises and the camera slowly zooms in on the face of the killer.
I call this a delicious piece of trash, certainly recommended for the sleaze connoisseur in search of ever more obscure morsels to feed his addiction. You want it, you need it!
Youtube clip: Life class
how Jack reacts when asked to sketch a real live naked woman
Ratings
Quality: 2/10 Fun: 8/10
Review copy
| Publisher | ILC Prime |
| Format | DVD Region 0, PAL 4:3 |
| Certificate | 15 (UK) |
| Image | Typical nasty sub-VHS upscaled from NTSC complete with interlacing artefacts |
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