The Beast That Killed Women

The "nudie-cutie" is without a doubt one of the campiest genres in the history of American cinema. Prevented by the censors from doing anything stronger, 60's exploitation filmmakers like David Freiedman, Herschel Gordon Lewis, and Barry Mahon resorted to making "nature documentaries"--basically home movies shot at nudist camps (although the actual nudists were usually told to take a hike and attractive and voluptuous nude models were put in their place). Naturally, the acting and production values were atrocious and the films were much more silly than erotic. It is always refreshing to see naked women before the modern era of institutionalized anorexia and silicone implants, but you'd do better with the later 70's sexploitation films like the "roughies" or the "ghoulies" which often featured the same kinds of women but were far sleazier and had actual (and often mind-warping) plots. You see one nudie-cutie film on the other hand you've seen them all.

If you MUST see one though of these movies though, this is a good choice. It ranks somewhere between "The House on Bare Mountain" and similar "The Monster at Camp Sunshine", but unlike both those earlier films it is in color. It really should be called "The Beast that Killed Woman" as only one woman is killed (and probably owing to censorship, she is fully clothed at the time). The beast also throws a guy in a lake and most of the movie is taken up with the police interviewing this second "victim" in his hospital bed or with various nude or semi-nude women discussing how scared they are and whether they should leave the resort. My favorite scene is where a woman is screaming for help and one of these bimbos responds by jumping out of her top bunk and hopping into the lower bunk with her friend (yeah, that makes a lot more sense than calling the police). The "beast" by the way turns out to be an escaped gorilla (or rather a man in a very unconvincing gorilla suit). What is a murderous escaped gorilla doing in a Florida nudist resort? You know, they never really do say. Oh well.