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The Sex Killer (1967)

Dir: Barry Mahon

Tony works at a mannequin factory. Tony has no friends. Tony likes looking at the sunbathing beauties from the roof of his high rise apartment building with his shiny new binoculars.
Tony is weird.

One day he tries to smuggle home a female mannequin bust but it is promptly confiscated by his head shaking boss (Bob Oran) and so a frustrated Tony is driven to stealing a dummy head from a junk shop (probably because it couldn't help but give good head, seeing as that's all it is…a head).
He takes his new love with him to a bar (resulting in melodramatic looks of silent confusion from the other patrons) and for a subway ride to his shabby room…where he proceeds to lay it on his bed and caress it!
Ahhh...It's love that is.

Tony, all fired up by the dummy head and sun kissed titties picks up a 42nd Street hooker (the very lovely Uta Erickson from "Kiss of her Flesh"/"Curse of her Flesh") who, as she declares, is not cheap; "You got £20"? Now that's a high-class lady!
But poor Tony has only got $10! She is not amused by this turn of events, no sir! But being a lady of sophistication, she agrees to strip for him…but no way can hetouch! Not for a lousy $10!

Oh dear! This exposed flesh only succeeds in in-flaming Tony's frustrations! So it's off on a crazed rape and murder spree (but NOT in that order! Yikes!!) and soon no woman is safe as they are stalked and pounced upon…Normally wearing see through lingerie.
As the body count rises a cry goes up from the terrified populous; 'Who can stop this madness, who can stop this…SEX KILLER'?!

 

Does this sound fun or what? Well that's the problem. It sounds fun, but is actually nothing like as fun as it does indeed sound. But first things first….

You know, you just KNOW, that something trashy in the extreme is about to unfold before you as the titles to this obscure quickie flash up on screen. What we have (accompanied by some groovy Rockabilly guitar twanging) are two shots of black cut out letters glued to what looks like a bit of grey cardboard! Hell even the corners on some of letters are not stuck down properly!
It's a thing of beauty people. Beauty.

Director Mohan is probably best known for the nudist camp/monster on the rampage movie "The Beast that Killed Women", but this brief spurt (a paltry 56 minutes) of ultra low budget weirdness is also worth a bit of exposure (and it now has it courtesy of those good folks at 'Something Weird Video' where it shares a DVD with "The Zodiac Killer" and "Zero in and Scream"), though it is not the film it could have been.

Camera work is shaky to say the least and wobbly tracking shots and pans are most certainly the order of the day.
But this ragged technicality helps to give the film a certain skuzzy charm and the 'fly on the wall' style sequences of Tony walking around 60's New York locations (including some great old Grindhouse cinemas) are a joy for fans of that bygone era.

Mohan falls down on the film's pacing though, and even at 56 minutes the film tends to drag. This is not helped by the overuse of footage (accompanied only by muffled sounds of traffic or inaudible muttering) of the less than exciting art of mannequin production!
Mohan also seems to have no idea how to make what he is shooting actually attention grabbing.
Most sequences are simply filmed via a master shot that slowly follows the actors around or stands still to catch every second of wooden dialogue delivery. A few bits here and there aside, this is simply a case of stick the camera down and crank it up.

Performances are mainly wooden, with the lead actor rarely seizing the chance to wallow in the potential sleazy highs that his character's madness promises. Everyone else simply reads the limited dialogue like it's the back of a cereal packet. Very uninspired.

But, the film saves itself due to Mohan's need to get as much bare female flesh on screen as possible, the sleazy stalking sequences and the overall scummy idea that Tony likes to do the horizontal boogie with corpses (though that is off screen).

Tony's 'peeping tom' activities towards the women relaxing on the city's many flat roofs, are portrayed by that old favourite... the phoney 'through the binoculars' framing!
So we see seemingly endless breasts cradled in two connected circles for what feels like half the films running time. These supposed binocular shots also seem to change angle and distance with wild abandon! Perhaps Tony has the power of flight!

All these scenes, as well as the 'unexpecting lady victim relaxing in her see-through lingerie' sequences are accompanied by that seemingly ceaseless Rockabilly rocking. In fact 20 minutes in and we have had very little dialogue at all…it's all guitar twangs and street noises. LOTS of street noises. Filmed via live sound the dialogue tends to get lost, but it certainly adds to the movie's almost documentary feel when shooting on location.
As mentioned, the dialogue is sparse but it does have a trashy charm. One conversation in particular between two of Tony's work mates after the first killing is fun; "Some guy apparently broke into a girl's apartment, strangled her with her stockings then balled her after she was dead"!
"Balled her after she was dead?…Well at least she was warm".

The nudity is confined to T&A (though very careful to show as much groin as possible without any pubic hair poking it's nose into frame…does pubic hair have a nose?…Anyway…) but the actresses are all pleasing to the eye and sheer amount of bouncing skin keeps it ticking along nicely. Violence wise it's pretty tame. The fact that the women are topless adding to the sleaze factor of the murders more than the strangling which, as most films are guilty of, make it all look way too quick and easy.

So, to sum up…Some plodding pacing, lifeless set-ups, uninspired direction, and mostly wooden performances all manage to hold the film back. And thus only the idea, the location filming and the skin content really hold the attention.
Worth a look though for a pretty much textbook (at least in it's basic set-up/content) example of the 60's 'Roughie' that was such a staple of the sadly defunct Grindhouse scene.