1950s matinée idol Tab Hunter here gets a juicy role into which he can sink his teeth, and does: he plays Eddie, a Phys. Ed. teacher in Venice, California, who's sad and lonely. He has a real problem when it comes to making love to women, and it stems from a traumatic incident in his childhood (no surprise there). When he accidentally kills one young women, it sets off something inside him, and then he graduates to actually murdering the sexy ladies of Venice.
Not that this film, written, co-produced, and directed by budding young talent Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential", "8 Mile"), is really about jacking up a body count. It's more of a character study than anything else, and Hunter proves up to the task of helping us get to know this man with severe psycho sexual issues. The whole film is simply but effectively done, with some solid atmosphere and a bit of gore.
There's also a delectable dose of nudity in this thing; when originally released under the title "Sweet Kill", it wasn't too successful; (uncredited) executive producer Roger Corman then went to Hanson and ordered him to "sleaze up" his film a bit with additional sex scenes. Unfortunately, this move didn't help the films' fortunes. Still, it will make many a voyeur quite happy as the female co-stars show the goods.
Hunter is well supported by the appealing Latimer, Nadyne Turney as Barbara (the one well meaning woman with whom Eddie tries to make a connection), veteran actress Isabel Jewell as a landlady, a pre-fame Angus Scrimm as her husband, 70s drive-in starlet Roberta Collins as a call girl, and John Aprea of "The Godfather Part II" as Latimers' boyfriend.
With a chilling score by Charles Bernstein as accompaniment, this is well done overall and worth a viewing for trash devotees.
Eight out of 10.
