Day Of The Nightmare
This is quite a little gem. It starts off with an artist painting a nude model. The model comes on to him, so he ties her to a couch and straps her butt with his belt until he climaxes. So, your first thought is, hey, this might be a great little sexploitation movie. And there are other sexploitation elements in the movie as well, but really, only one scene, with a bunch of blindfolded swingers swapping mates, seems gratuitous. The model whipping, and later, two hired hookers doing a lesbian scene, actually seem to fit the plot, which is this: an artist named Jonathan Crane has a lot of unresolved childhood conflicts brought on by his parents "convenience" marriage. Jonathan found his mother in bed with someone other than daddy when he was a kid. Daddy wasn't very faithful either. This childhood trauma has caused Jonathan to have a split personality, the other side being a deranged transvestite psycho killer. So, he spends a lot of time in the movie dressed as a woman and attempting to kill his wife and father. It takes the police and his wife and father a long time to figure out what is going on, because they're not aware of Jonathan's split personality.
This movie is actually rather well done, with good camera work, a good music score, and above average acting for this type of movie. The movie actually manages to generate some tension and keeps your attention, and it has some very memorable scenes. One is where he hires two hookers to commit acts of lesbianism on each other while he watches from a chair and sobs "Mommie, Mommie." There is also a scene where he's running from the police in an amusement park and catches a glimpse of himself in a fun house mirror and lets out a plaintive wail at the sight of himself. Typing this stuff is making me laugh. This movie is actually as good as it sounds. If you eliminated the nudie stuff, it would actually play as a decent psychodrama, which is unique. It seems that the sexploitation elements, though wonderful, would have prevented this movie from reaching an audience that might actually find it a well-done suspense thriller.
I have this movie in the Ted V. Mikels section because he was the director of photography. He does a nice job, too. Technically, this film is better than any of the films that he would later go on to direct himself. This film also gets bonus points for having a cameo with the always over-the-top Liz Renay. Definitely worth checking out! It's great that gems like this can still be unearthed. My copy of this movie comes from a nearly flawless print. Too bad my copy is on the Something Weird video label and looks like a 6th generation dub even though it's new.
I'm rating this video a 4, but it's damn near a 5.