The Lonely Sex

Lonely Sex, The (1959)

** (out of 4)

Bizarre film about a sex maniac stalking the streets who is apparently messed up due to his first sexual encounter being with a prostitute. He eventually kidnaps a woman and keeps her locked up in a shack in the woods as her friends try to find her. It's very important to keep in mind that this film beat PEEPING TOM and PSYCHO into theaters by a year so this film probably deserves to be better known among movie fans. Director Hilliard is best known for directing VIOLENT MIDNIGHT and writing the cult classic THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH so it's interesting to see such an early cash-in on the sex maniac that would become more popular a decade or two later. This film has an ultra-low budget that doesn't allow for too much on the technical side but there are a few nice moments including one sequence in front of the mirror as the killer tries to "paint" over his face. The low-budget nature works in some ways as it gives the film a more documentary-like feel and this certainly helps in the scenes with the killer quietly stalking the women. What doesn't work too well are the performances, which are far from bad but none of them are good enough to really carry the movie. Another problem is the screenplay that never really gets too deep so don't expect anything psychological like the future Hitchcock film. Running a brief 58-minutes there's really not too much time to dig into any real issues with the killer so everything is pretty much just skipped in order to keep the film moving. We do get some brief nudity and a rather violent scene where the killer stones a woman to death but the blood level remains at zero. This certainly isn't a good movie but fans of the genre will probably want to check it out just to see something made before Norman Bates.

"The Lonely Sex" is a very strange sort of exploitation film. First, unlike most exploitation films of the 30s, 40s and 50s, this one actually has some nudity--and gratuitous nudity at that. Second, the film is about sexual deviants and appears to be a film that encourages the audience to try to empathize with these folks! However, the film is made so poorly and features so much lousy acting and dialog that you can't help but laugh at the film. It's about two guys--one a creepy guy who likes to peep in windows and make inappropriate advances towards his landlord's daughter and the other is a social misfit who kills a woman and then kidnaps the landlord's daughter! This second one is awfully pathetic and you do feel for the guy a bit...but he DOES murder a lady and I don't know how you can excuse that. Overall, the film is a confusing mess of a film that doesn't exactly seem to know what its message should be. Is this a warning to parents? Is this a plea for understanding? Is this just a badly written film? All I know is that the film was, at times, interesting but mostly it was just a forgettable cheap mess...with boobies.