Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Night of the Strangler

Joy N. Houk, Jr. – 1972 – USA

Laughably horrible thriller set in New Orleans about the upheaval among a trio of adult siblings when a sister gets pregnant by her black boyfriend, which one brother, a hippie, doesn’t mind at all, but which the older brother, a vile bigot, has a little problem with.  Big brother is so evil, in fact, that he puts out a hit on the boyfriend, sparking a cycle of retribution that has various people ending up dead in preposterous ways, including by poisonous snakes popping out of bouquets of flowers.  The direction is non-existent save only for the apparent instruction to the actors to pitch every line in a state of soap-like intensity.  Everyone spends the film thoroughly irate and almost every scene is comprised of shouting matches and dreadfully choreographed scuffles.  The only item of interest is to see former Monkee Micky Dolenz as the sensitive younger brother.  If Micky had any hope of segueing into a serious acting career, it must have dwindled during (or possibly just before) this film.  As with yesterday’s film, Two Men in Town, this one’s title makes no sense either; not much of it takes place at night and I’m pretty sure no one was strangled at all…

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