Sweet Kill (1972)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Expected more

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Handsome gym teacher living in a beachfront apartment has women trouble: they're drawn to him, but he's suffering from a mental block (blame it on Mommy) and freezes up before sex, leading to an outburst of violence. Tired, cheapjack serial killer sleaze from talented writer-director Curtis Hanson (re-released by Roger Corman a few years later as "The Arousers", with the addition of naked babes) hasn't enough going on in it. Tab Hunter apparently took on the leading role to show off his range (limited to begin with), but if he had hoped this low-grade junk would be his "Boston Strangler" he was mistaken. Hanson doesn't delve into depth of character or even provide much of a background for the killer; his work is that of a rank amateur. Hunter's coach is just a woman-hating psychopath fending off the affections of naked women, all of whom are humiliated by the camera. A depressing experience. * from ****

Former 50's teen idol Tab Hunter gives a superbly chilling and convincing performance as Eddie Collins, a lonely, impotent and sexually frustrated high school gym teacher who was driven around the bend by his shameless whore mother who used to parade around naked in front of him as a little boy. Eddie viciously murders any lovely young lass who tries (and fails) to turn him on. Writer/director Curtis Hanson, who went on to win an Oscar for the terrific "L.A. Confidential," does an expert job of creating and sustaining a creepy, clammy, clinical tone for this luridly compelling portrait of homicidal madness and seething misogyny. Moreover, Hanson astutely nails the whole right-on groovy swingin' 70's zeitgeist, evokes a highly credible sense of everyday mundane reality and builds plenty of nerve-wracking tension which reaches a harrowing fever pitch in the terrifying final third. The abundant gratuitous distaff nudity, the seedy seaside Venice, California locations, the shockingly blunt'n'brutal violence and the profoundly unnerving conclusion all give this picture a raw, sleazy, unsettling edge that's mighty tough to shake. Nice supporting performances by Nadyne Turney as fed-up, long-suffering unhappy single gal Barbara, Isabel Jewell as a snoopy landlady, a pre-"Phantasm" Angus Scrimm as Jewell's husband, and longtime favorite 70's drive-in flick starlet Roberta Collins as a brassy call girl. Charles Bernstein's supremely spooky'n'shuddery score and Daniel Lacambre's crisp, polished cinematography are both up to par. The inspired casting of Tab Hunter in the warped lead qualifies as the film's masterstroke; Hunter's blandly handsome boy next door persona makes for the perfect front for the severe dementia bubbling just underneath the surface. An excellent and unjustly overlooked little nugget.

This is part of a strange trend in the early 1970's of 1950's male matinée idols playing serial killers. First, Rock Hudson appeared in the wonderful black comedy "Pretty Maids All in a Row" as high school guidance counselor, football coach, and sex murderer. Then Troy Donahue appeared in the bizarre "Love Thrill Murderers" (aka "Sweet Savior") as a Mansonesque cult leader. And in this movie, years before more publicly exploding his screen image in John Water's "Polyester", Tab Hunter plays an impotent and murderous PE coach (is there any other kind?). The plot is pretty simple: Tab can't get it up, so in frustration he kills the many women who excite him or come on to him.This movie is better made than many (like the "Love-Thrill Murders), but it is presented in a VERY serious manner and could have really used the black humor of a film like "Pretty Maids". The premise is pretty ridiculous after all. The film also follows another 70's/early 80's trend of being told from the POV of the deranged killer and trying to make him somewhat sympathetic. Again this can work if it's a well-made film (i.e. "Peeping Tom", "Taxi Driver")or if it contains a good dose of black humor ("Deranged"), but often the results ended up being either highly unpleasant ("Maniac", "Don't Go in the House") or just plain risible ("Don't Answer the Phone", "Mardi Gras Massacre"). This falls more into the latter category (despite some lingering misogyny). Strangely, in spite of the killer's occupation as a P.E. coach, the movie resists joining the teen sexploitation trend that was big at the time (with movies like "Pretty Maids", "The Cheerleaders", and Tom Loughlin's ridiculous "sex-with-the-babysitter movies"). Tab's victims are all collegiate age or older women (although I might point out to both the drooling perverts and clucking moralists that the same 18-to-30-year-old actress types were used in all these movies regardless of how old the characters were supposed to be). There is one minor subplot where Tab tries to help a troubled male teenage virgin, but it gets dropped pretty quickly.Mostly this movie just isn't a lot of fun. It's hard to take seriously, but it contains little or no comedy. There is one scene where a hippie girl complains about her missing (murdered) roommate and the cops bust her for possession of marijuana, but this scene is really not mined enough either for humor or scathing social commentary. That really leaves only the generous female nudity to recommend this thing, and that may not be enough for most people.

Current A-list director Curtis Hanson's first 1970 film portrayal of a sexually-deviant gym teacher and serial killer features an incredibly creepy performance by Tab Hunter which is so good, it raises the quality of the whole movie. Unfortunately, the production values are rather inferior: the film has the flat lighting of a TV-movie, mixed sound quality, an underdeveloped script, and a few embarrassingly awkward scenes - one with Hunter giving a male student advice about girls that reminded me of a cheap educational filmstrip, and another with police finding marijuana in a character's bathtub. With all of the realistic serial killer films which have come out since this film, it probably had greater originality when first released, as an early attempt to portray a serial killer's actions squarely in the middle of mundane everyday reality. However, part of the creepy quality here is that Hunter portrays a character who seems exceedingly normal on the outside but is obviously incredibly disturbed. The whole sexual impotence aspect of his compulsions thankfully remains low-key, as simply slipping this guy some Viagra would probably not solve his difficulties.All in all, definitely not a bad time-filler or debut for Hanson; there are a couple of memorable shock scenes. However, for a much more substantial treatment of similar subject matter, I suggest Robert Altman's very obscure 1964 film "Nightmare in Chicago."