didn't think it was anywhere near the cult hype surrounding the film. dont get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but at the same time, it wasn't anywhere near as good as i thought it'd be.
"how about... a royal flush!" *loren avedon kicks a cauldron of boiling water into the bad guys*
... and you choose to like a movie based on the hype it gets?
Do The Mussolini! Headkick!
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I knew that the film had something of a cult reputation, but I knew nothing else about it and hadn't seen it until the other night when it aired on TCM (I'm now kicking myself for not recording it). For the first 15 minutes or so I was bored with it (and the bad sound was extremely irritating). But there's something oddly genuine about the film, so soon I was engrossed. As kevv said above, you don't see those sorts of things in films -- particularly in 1969. The grainy hand-held shots made it feel akin to voyeurism. The acting, at least for the two leads, was pretty solid. And the story didn't fall into the traps that most of the killer films fall prey to. I can completely understand why it's become a cult favorite. And now I'm in the cult... but I still hate the title.
shareHahhaa. Yeah, I actually saw this movie as a mistake. I thought it was Mario Bava's Hatchet For The Honeymoon (kind of a slasher classic). I was totally surprised when I got this, but it was a good surprise. It's definitely one of the better indie films I've seen up to this point. What I remember the most, though, is the Mahler music they used for a score. Normally, I prefer original music made for the movie, but this is an exception. As far as the title goes, I usually refer to it by its non-official title, The Lonely Hearts Killers.
Do The Mussolini! Headkick!
Actually, the better unofficial title would be "Dear Martha", which is what Leonard Kastle wanted to call it. It was the movie's distributor who demanded a more literal title, which Kastle hates to this day. There's a very informative extended interview with him on the Criterion DVD of the movie, where he discusses all of this.
I love camp movies and bad movies that are so bad they are good but this was just bad. Bad acting, bad directing, not scary, not funny, Shirley looks like Divine, I was just waiting for John Waters to pop up with his band of hammy (and at least funny) actors. This movie looked more like John Waters was fired as director then some hack took over!
shareIt's a low-budget exploitation movie which is likely to disappoint, confuse or estrange anyone who isn't particularly intrigued by the strategies it pioneered. Much of its power derives from its ability to arouse a mixture of conflicting responses without refining them or sorting them out. That's what attracted me to it. It's hard to disengage the film's grotesque hilarity from its horrific violence. It's just as hard to figure out how I should relate to the characters. Should I pity the victims or despise them? Should I consider the murderers hideous or tragic, monstrous or banal? I also like the fact that there's none of the sanctimoniousness that surrounds the portrayal of the victims in earlier films, like In Cold Blood. In this film we're confronted with a putrescent version of Norman Rockwell's America: a kitschy wasteland filled with uninspiring patriotism, meager dreams, and tawdry decor.
That is what makes this film so ahead of its time: its refusal to express or to provide neat resolutions. It also resists easy categorization. For example, it resembles a gangster film but its protagonists lack the stature of the gangster anti-hero. It's a noir, but its blunt, austere style is virtually the inverse of noir. Its documentary realism places it closer to the semi-documentary crime films but it lacks the positivist, rationalist spirit of those films. In terms of the characters and violence it portrays, it resembles compulsive killer studies such as Psycho and Peeping Tom, but it lacks those films' semi-expressionist stylistics and emphasis on the characters' inner lives. Its bleak vision of a decayed, criminal-infested society resembles that of cop avenger films in the Dirty Harry mold, but it ignores the police hero and tells the story from the criminal's side of the law. Its remorseless killers link it to the stalker/slasher films, but it doesn't focus on the victims and doesn't mythologize the killer figure.
Once you appreciate all its innovations, the hype surrounding the film becomes easier to understand.
The previous poster already provided an in depth analysis. I just add that "cult movies" don't become cult movies for being good, they become that for being special.
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