Sweet Kill (1971)
By Jedd Birkner
This dark B movie from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures was Curtis Hanson’s directing debut and features Tab Hunter as a sexually conflicted killer. Low on blood and gore but high on tension and psychological horror, this low budget outing delivers unexpected entertainment value.
Hanson had co-written the script for “The Dunwich Horror” (1970), loosely based on H. P. Lovecraft’s short story, for Corman for A.I.P. After Corman formed New World Pictures, Hanson approached him saying he wanted to write and direct. Corman responded that he would be interested in a biker movie, women in prison pic or a nurses feature. Then Corman suggested a “Psycho”-type film and “Sweet Kill” was born.
Corman was notorious for his low budget exploitation films, for giving young, eager neophytes who hoped to break into Hollywood their first opportunities and for being cheap as hell.
Supposedly, Corman offered to put up two thirds of the budget if Hanson and his partner came up with the remaining third. At the last minute, Corman reneged and came up with only a third, leaving Hanson and his producing partner to scramble for financing for the other two thirds. Hanson claimed he had to ask his parents to take out a loan on their house.
After the film was shot in 1971, Corman looked at the finished product and said “it needed more tits.” The requisite nudity was filmed and inserted and the film was released to less than overwhelming numbers in 1973. It was re-released in 1976 as “The Arousers” with similar results.
Hanson went on to direct such varied hits as “Bad Influence,” “L.A. Confidential,” “8 Mile” and “In Her Shoes,” and won an Academy Award for his screenplay for “L.A. Confidential.”
“Sweet Kill” has a definite “Psycho” flavor with a strong helping of Michael Powell’s “Peeping Tom“. Hanson later said that Hitchcock was one of his two greatest influences. This is no Hitchcock, but there are some competent set ups of tension and some inspired creepy mise-en-scene.
Set in Southern California (Hanson’s grandparents’ apartment in Venice, CA was supposedly used for the protagonist’s digs), it follows Eddie (aging heartthrob Tab Hunter) a hunky, young gym teacher, Peeping Tom and panty snatcher, rendered impotent by a traumatic incestuous experience with his mother when he was a child. He has sexually imprinted on his mother, but feels tremendous guilt. Accordingly, he craves a platonic relationship with an idealized mother figure (his frustrated downstairs neighbor, Barbara, played by Nadyne Turney) and is unable to perform with any of the numerous young women who willingly throw themselves at him, who he calls sluts. His only sexual relief is regularly scheduled sessions with a Monroe-esque call girl (played with panache by Roberta Collins, who appeared in many exploitation pics such as the original “Death Race 2000,” Tobe Hooper’s “Eaten Alive” and the iconic women in prison movie “Caged Heat” but died in her early 60s from a reported overdose) who dresses up like Eddie’s mother and lies passively on the bed while Eddie kneels on the floor, rests his head on her naked breast and masturbates. Pretty picture, no? Yeah, pretty creepy stuff. But at least we can thank Corman for all the extra breast shots.
Eddie’s sexual conflicts lead to murder. And another murder and…well, you get the idea. There are a few too many women in peril running in the dark in their nightgown scenes, but some were surprisingly effective. I inadvertently blurted out at one point, “Don’t! Don’t get up!” wishing one of the heroines would stay in her hiding place. I should have known better. Sadly that character did not live to see a brighter tomorrow. Yelling back at the screen is a sure sign of success for a grindhouse film.
One of the interesting side notes of this film was the amount of plot and screentime devoted to Eddie’s difficulty in getting rid of the bodies of his victims. Admittedly, his murders are often depicted as unplanned crimes of sexual rage, but he is singularly inept in cleaning up. No one said he was the smartest gym teacher there ever was.
Apropos of its “Psycho” roots, there are actually two clever shower scenes worked in and, thankfully, they do not give you what you expect. Hansen also manages to give his characters actual character. Rather unique for a low budget effort. There were several young victims I found myself caring about until it was too late. In addition, Eddie’s psychosexual issues are given a dramatic logic. We understand Eddie’s inability to be aroused by a female equal as well as his violent reactions to women’s advances. Later in the film, we see how Eddie, the gym teacher, sublimates his sexual conflicts in physical exercise. Indeed, we also later see Eddie’s pleasure in repeatedly plunging his knife into a helpless nightgown clad female as a substitute for the erection he will never be able to give her.
I might add, Eddie had to have been the worst gym teacher to have ever. Especially creepy are the scenes where an inexperienced teen boy asks Eddie for advice with girls. Eddie…Eddie is NOT the guy to ask.
One of the perverse pleasures for me about watching low budget exploitation films is spotting people who were on their way up or, conversely, on their way down in the business. A minor character, Richard, the pot-smoking, Italianate boyfriend of the roommate of Eddie’s first victim (did you follow that?) was played by John Aprea, who had appeared as some sort of goombah heavy in “Bullitt and would later appear in such films as “The Godfather Part II,” the original “The Stepford Wives,” David Fincher’s “The Game” and the remake of “The Manchurian Candidate.” Appearing in her last film was Isabel Jewell (as Eddie’s landlady) who had gotten her start in Hollywood forty years earlier and appeared in such film classics as “Gone With the Wind,” “High Sierra” and “Lost Horizon.” Such heights! And now…”The Arousers.” Well…that’s Hollywood for you.
Jedd Birkner – A Classics scholar, Ivy League wrestler and former A.F.I. screenwriting fellow, Jedd spent over forty years in the entertainment industry including a thirty year stint at 20th Century Fox. Now, when he’s not summiting peaks or doing photography, he does what he does best: watch a shitload of films. His preferred watches are dark, transgressive and often don’t have subtitles…but should (his knowledge of Japanese and Mandarin are very limited).
