The Sadist

Rating:
Summary: "JOHNNYYYY!!!"
Review: "I have been hurt by others and I will hurt them. I will make them suffer as I have suffered".
Three people at a deserted gas station are taken hostage and terrorised by a psychopathic thrill-killer, Johnny (Arch Hall Jr) and his mute girlfriend Judy (Marilyn Manning). One of the men is a teacher so Johnny taunts him because teachers give Judy a rough time for being mute.
Pretty violent for it's time (1963, the film was inspired by the real life Charles Starkweather murders) especially the scene where Johnny makes the female hostage "eat dirt". Arch Hall Jr is one of the worst actors I have ever witnessed. It's beyond me how Leonard Maltin can say he is "distressingly believeable".It's akin to saying Dick Van Dyke was "distressingly believable" in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG. Hall's acting range basically extends to screwing his face up, sneering and seeing how far he can stick his tongue out when he laughs. He reminds me of some losers I went to high school with. Though admittedly, all this does lead up to an intense climax and denoument.
THE SADIST'S Supervising Editor was Anthony M. Lanza, who would direct the hilariously awful INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT in 1971 with Bruce Dern! THE SADIST has "cult movie" stamped all over it, and despite being 40 years old, it's well worth checking out for cult afficionados. The film is also known as PROFILE OF TERROR.

Rating:
Summary: Un-natural Born Killers...
Review: "The Sadist" is a relentlessly disturbing film. Released in 1963, it had to be absolutely shocking then. Arch Hall jr. plays serial killer Charlie Tibbs. He and his mostly silent, equally psychotic girlfriend Judy have been traveling the countryside, murdering whoever is unlucky enough to cross their path. Three teachers (on their way to a baseball game) are stranded in a salvage yard when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Everything's fine until Tibbs and company enter the scene. From that point on the story spirals out of control! There are many violent parts, many unexpected twists. Very realistic, considering the year it came out and who made it. The director (James Landis) specialized in dorky, teenybopper movies. He definitely left that genre behind with this flick! Arch Hall jr. is a sadistic super-creep. I found myself wanting to knock him in the head! He is unpredictable, crazy, and therefore terrifying. You never know who's going to be executed next. There is a growing sense of dread, desperation, and terror. This is a horror movie. Charlie Tibbs is like so many gruesome headlines today. "The Sadist" holds up well. I was amazed by it's frankness and unflinching portrayal of evil on the loose. Yes, there is a hero, but you're not sure who it will be. I highly recommend this movie...

Rating:
Summary: Un-natural Born Killers...
Review: "The Sadist" is a relentlessly disturbing film. Released in 1963, it had to be absolutely shocking then. Arch Hall jr. plays serial killer Charlie Tibbs. He and his mostly silent, equally psychotic girlfriend Judy have been traveling the countryside, murdering whoever is unlucky enough to cross their path. Three teachers (on their way to a baseball game) are stranded in a salvage yard when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Everything's fine until Tibbs and company enter the scene. From that point on the story spirals out of control! There are many violent parts, many unexpected twists. Very realistic, considering the year it came out and who made it. The director (James Landis) specialized in dorky, teenybopper movies. He definitely left that genre behind with this flick! Arch Hall jr. is a sadistic super-creep. I found myself wanting to knock him in the head! He is unpredictable, crazy, and therefore terrifying. You never know who's going to be executed next. There is a growing sense of dread, desperation, and terror. This is a horror movie. Charlie Tibbs is like so many gruesome headlines today. "The Sadist" holds up well. I was amazed by it's frankness and unflinching portrayal of evil on the loose. Yes, there is a hero, but you're not sure who it will be. I highly recommend this movie...

Rating:
Summary: Exploitation classic packs a whallop; DVD shines
Review: First of all I have to second all the comments by the other reviewers. The Sadist is truly an overlooked gem, and Arch Hall is perfect as the archetypal loudmouthed, cretinous bully. The real-time exposition, no-name cast, and minimal "sweetening" of the violence really help approximate the feeling of being intimidated/violated in real life. Harder to watch at times than more recent, 'explicitly' violent movies. This must have been a real shocker in 1963. My only complaint is that Arch's incessant waving of his gun gets a little tedious, although maybe it's intentional: after a while you wish someone would grab it and stuff it down his throat. If you had to be stranded on a desert island with only one drooling-psychopath flick, this is it.
Allday's DVD really does this mini-classic justice as well. The 35mm source print used is excellent and matted to 1.66:1 per cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond's specifications. There are only the slightest traces of wear (occasional very light speckling, a few blemishes), and the print is respectably sharp, with rich tonal values. Allday actually apologizes in their notes about a few flaws they couldn't fix, but overall it still looks great. Extras include chapter stops, informative production notes, a selection of Fairway Intl trailers, and the real bonus of the set, a commentary by DP Vilmos Zsigmond. This is a real treat not only for fans of this film but for just about any stripe of movie freak. His conversation runs the gamut: personal recollections and technical aspects of shooting The Sadist; his prior experiences in Europe and then coming to America; working on many other films including Easy Rider, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Close Encounters; detailed explanations of photographic techniques, etc. Find out how The Sadist shares stylistic traits with Citizen Kane and how Zsigmond feels about being repeatedly mistaken for Laszlo Kovacs! Exploitation fans, snap this up before it's impossible to find.

Rating:
Summary: Rating for the film, not the DVD
Review: I haven't seen this DVD version yet. Sounds better than the many cheapie DVDs available for this film. The Sadist might just be the coolest exploitation film ever made.

Rating:
Summary: Very surprised!
Review: I'd heard about this movie many years ago from Sinister Cinema and wondered what it was like. Knowing that it starred Arch Hall from the laughably bad "Eegah", I didn't know how to accept its praises. After seeing it, I am still shocked that a "studio" responsible for something so awful, could also produce something this good within the same year! Arch Hall is everything the other reviewers claims he is, and the movie delivers suspence and tension from start to finish. The only reason I'm giving it 4 stars out of 5, is that I envisioned it to be more of a road-trip film... instead of ALL the action taking place in one central location.

Rating:
Summary: Very surprised!
Review: I'd heard about this movie many years ago from Sinister Cinema and wondered what it was like. Knowing that it starred Arch Hall from the laughably bad "Eegah", I didn't know how to accept its praises. After seeing it, I am still shocked that a "studio" responsible for something so awful, could also produce something this good within the same year! Arch Hall is everything the other reviewers claims he is, and the movie delivers suspence and tension from start to finish. The only reason I'm giving it 4 stars out of 5, is that I envisioned it to be more of a road-trip film... instead of ALL the action taking place in one central location.

Rating:
Summary: Another overlooked entry in the psycho killer genre
Review: Normally a movie with a title such as The Sadist will get my horror glands salivating, but the prospect of watching Arch Hall, Jr., trying to act for an hour and a half inspired a morbid fear all its own in my soul; I think those who've seen Eegah! can understand my dilemma. Fear not, friends, for Arch Hall, Jr., does not - I repeat, does not - play the guitar or sing in this movie. He does try to act, unfortunately, but this is as close to a good performance as he would ever have. Hall plays Charles Tibbs, a blood-thirsty psycho enjoying the thrills of an interstate killing spree alongside his childlike girlfriend Judy (played by Marilyn Manning, yet another Eegah! alumnus). The character of Tibbs is loosely based on real-life killer Charles Starkweather. On this particular day, a trio of schoolteachers off to enjoy a day of baseball at Dodger Stadium end up rolling snake-eyes in the crap shoot of fate. Their car breaks down on the way, and they end up at the salvage yard of death, a place under new, albeit temporary management - one Charles Tibbs. So begins an afternoon of terror, horror, and silly-looking grimacing on the face of Arch Hall, Jr., obviously upset about the complete lack of Arch and his Archers performances in the film.

Our three teachers are just normal people (although the female of the group is about the sweetest and most lovely little school marm I've ever seen); they continually prove their lack of heroism by the things they do and do not do. Nothing happens that would be considered sadistic in today's world, but I can see how this movie could have been somewhat shocking to the audiences of its day (1963). Arch Hall, Jr., was known for playing nice guys who also happened to sing (badly) in the movies, so The Sadist marked a 180 degree turn in his film-making career at this time. Hall puts a lot into his effort, perhaps too much. All of the grimacing and Ernest T. Bass-like diction seems a little silly after a while, but he does manage to look and act like a psycho killer. He also does some things that might catch viewers off guard. The Sadist does not explicitly follow the standard "psycho killer" cinematic formula, and this fact more than any other makes The Sadist a movie worth seeing. Excellent cinematography also plays a role in this film's success; this really is a stark and troubling film that has never gotten the attention it deserves. It is not the best of the genre, but it is a more than respectable entry in the canon.

Rating:
Summary: "I will make them suffer as I have sufferd!"
Review: These are the words of a sadist. This Story is actually based on the true crime spree of Charlie Starkweather. If ever a film has shocked me this is the one. Just when you thought is he really going to do that? He does! There is no other film quite like "The SADIST"! I highly recommend this very violent cult classic! I also recommend The Thrill Killers & The Hitch-Hiker.

Rating:
Summary: SURPRISE! THIS IS A GREAT MOVIE!
Review: Well, THE PSYCHO is a better title. I got this flick thinking it would be full of SO BAD IT'S GOOD laughs. After all, I have just seen WILD GUITAR, (...), by Hall Jr. But he is very convincing in this role. Yes, he's still not [good], but this is a one dimensional character, and he's good in this regards. This movie reminds me of a drama on Richard Boone's dramatic series in the early 60s: WALL TO WALL WAR. How good is Arch Hall Jr. I want his victims to GET THAT [VILLAIN]!! The other acters are excellent, and I read that one of the crew had a part in THE DEER HUNTER. This is an unknown gem: get it!