Themes: Mental Illness, Mothers and Sons, Serial Killers
Main Cast: John Savage, Ann Sothern, Cindy Williams, Luana Anders, Ruth Roman
Release Year: 1973
Country: US
Run Time: 95 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
This genuinely perverse horror film stars John Savage as a young man forced to participate in the beachfront gang rape of Sue Bernard by his nasty friends. After two years in jail, he returns to the boardinghouse run by his mother (Ann Sothern), who does things like kissing him on the mouth and photographing him in the shower. Before long, he freaks out and strangles a cat while peeping at a new tenant (Cindy Williams), then almost drowns the poor girl in the pool before slashing her panties with a razor and choking her in the bathtub. He forces Bernard's car off a cliff, then makes his lawyer (Ruth Roman) drink herself stupid at knifepoint before setting her on fire. Savage and Sothern are fabulous and Luana Anders is creepy as the librarian next door who keeps trying to seduce the disturbed man. Quite a twisted little chiller, with several priceless bizarre moments like a dream sequence featuring a diapered Savage in a crib on the beach surrounded by laughing neighbors. The ubiquitous Gary Graver did 2nd unit photography. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Review
The Killing Kind is a simple, but devastating thriller that genre aficionados should seek out for sick kicks. There's nothing new here that serial killer stories since Psycho haven't already told us; smothering moms of easy virtue raise boys who displace their sexual desires through murder. What makes The Killing Kind compelling is a great cast composed of up-and-coming stars, seasoned character players, and exploitation vets. As the disturbed Terry, John Savage gives a layered performance that swings between blank, smoldering menace (with his victims) and relaxed, cheerful playfulness (with his mother). Terry's victims display real panic as their final moments approach, particularly in the film's harrowing turning point with the hapless Cindy Williams, who later ends up in a garbage dump with rats crawling over her corpse. Lady lawyer Ruth Roman had starred the year before in another bizarre thriller called The Baby, and car crash/rape victim Susan Bernard is best remembered for the classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Like-minded films of the era such as The Savage Intruder and I Dismember Mama also featured psychotics as lead characters with disturbing results, but The Killing Kind trumps them with great performances and unsettling violence that is visceral without plastic gore effects. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
