Disclaimer: This movie is included in
The Gorehouse Greats Collection, which is the version that I watched. Comments concerning this film only apply to the entertainment value of the movie, and not the quality of the film transfer on this disc.
A sexy, psychotic heiress falls for her ailing father's doctor, who is being blackmailed for performing illegal abortions. In order to snare him, the heiress is willing to commit murder to get at her inheritance, but there's a sister to account for too, one who may end up having a stronger draw on the doctor - over and above the money she stands to gain. Things go from bad to worse as everyone angles for the best position, until the tension finally breaks in an evening of 'blood mania'.
This films seems to have an identity problem - is it horror? is it a thriller? is it soft-core? There's enough scenes of a (purported) erotic nature that it could as well have been called 'Sex Mania', although that would make the ending an unexpected downer. And even though there's little suspense, it seems obvious that that's what director Robert O'Neill was going for. But the sex isn't steamy enough unless you've never *had* sex before, the tension is thin enough to be ladled out with a spoon, and the 10 minutes of mania at the end hardly justifies sitting around for the previous 78. However, if the disparate themes had meshed better (more along the lines 'Basic Instinct' - like it or hate it), or if at least the film's title was changed to something less indicative of a slasher film, then the film may have earned a third star. As it is, both the title and the cover art for the DVD come across as disengenious.
There is also a strange bit of discontinuity to the film - during the opening credits, there is a dream sequence that has the father, Ridgely Waterman (Eric Allison) bloodlessly stalking a young girl in a negligee - a girl that may be his daughter Gail (Vicki Peters). Later in the film, there is another dream sequence, this time by Gail, which contains shades of the first, and it is almost as if there was another element to the storyline that was never pursued, something that may have indicated that the father visited serious abuse on his daughters. That might explain the mental makeup of the daughter that remains with him (Maria de Aragon), and also why Gail only returned to the ancestral home after her father was dead, but the bones of this tangent are never fleshed out. One has to wonder if these scenes weren't added later to pad the story and to make the film more appealing to the horror crowd, or if the budget ran out before the editors could make the film coherent. Either way, it points to a film that, as a psycho-sexual thriller, is weak in all areas.
The film stars several Crown International Pictures alumni or those who would go on to star in other CIP productions: Peter Carpenter is the young doctor (and who died only a year after the release of this film - no cause listed), Maria de Aragon as the nympho heiress (also was one of the actors to play Greedo in the original - Han shot first - Star Wars), Leslie Simms as the father's nurse, and Arell Blanton and Alex Rocco in bit parts, whom we get to see together again a year later in the atrocious biker flick 'Wild Riders'. At least here Rocco shows his range, as he plays a character 180 degrees different from the wild rider Stick, but Blanton is just as sleazy and gutter-trash as he would be later.
The picture and sound on the 'Gorehouse Greats collection' is servicable for the type of film that it is, so I assume this individually packaged disc will probably make the grade too. Mileage will certainly vary on this film, but it will probably be best enjoyed by those who are not looking for horror so much as suspense. Unfortunately, both on this discs packaging and from being included in a collection called 'Gorehouse Greats', most people won't know that, and think, as I did, that we were about to get a run-of-the-mill slasher flick, as opposed to a run-of-the-mill jealous heiress flick. Two and 1/2 stars.
