The joys of nitpicking this movie
This little video nasty is quite the stinker, but part of the fun of criticizing wretched flicks like this is pointing out plot holes, bad writing, and unanswered questions, and then thinking of ways it could have been made better. Some of my favorite nitpicks:
1) Why didn't the homeless Vietnam veteran guy just use the little magic trick he'd picked up in Vietnam on himself? Whether he were heroic or villainous, one can imagine all kinds of ways that bum could use the ability to make himself look like anyone else to get food and drink and shelter, or at least sympathy and handouts and the occasional free bottle of hooch.
2) So the magic trick makes the protagonist bad guy look like a high school girl to everyone around him, but doesn't actually shape him into that other person? What happens if some other creep tries to grope this "girl" down between "her" legs while the magic is still in effect? Does the illusion somehow make "her" feel like a girl to him as well, or is he about to make an unsettling discovery?
3) Speaking of unsettling discoveries, why did the protagonist feel compelled to reveal himself to his victims before murdering them? He doesn't appreciate the advantages of having the element of surprise?
4) Back to how the magic works: if the protagonist were a rapist instead of/in addition to being a serial killer, and he decided to rape his victims the "traditional" way (instead of violating them with his switchblade the way he's indicated to have done), would they feel the violation even if they can't see it?
"Jo, what are you doing? What is that thing I'm feeling?"
"It's, um, a strap-on. Yeah, a strap-on. I think it's time for you to take a little walk on the wild side, darlin'!"
5) Considering that he didn't actually rape his victims (except in the sense of doing obscene things to them with his switchblade after they were dead), why didn't it occur to any of the police out looking for the killer to ask whether their culprit might actually be female? It's not as if he left any "male evidence" on his victims, and the killings did coincide with the arrival of a new "girl" at the victims' high school who rapidly ingratiated "herself" into their social circle. Heck of an oversight, not thinking to check that "girl's" background, coppers!
6) For that matter, why didn't it occur to any of the girls that their new "girl" friend might be up to some skulduggery when "she" would invite them to be off somewhere alone with "her" at a time when their parents wanted them to stay home because a killer was known to be on the loose? Even though there was no way for them to know what "she" truly was, they could have guessed that the killer could be a girl, or could have a girl working to lure victims to him. Of course, they weren't even as worldly-wise as the police... Still, why didn't anybody think to ask whether the killer might be female, and maybe someone who knew the victims from their school?
7) Why'd the police chief go chewing out the lady psychiatrist over Joe's release from the mental institution as if it were her fault when she'd already made abundantly clear that it wasn't her idea and she'd opposed it all the way? (Yeah, yeah, I know: bad writing.)
8) Even before the incident with the transvestite, nobody thought to look into police archives and public records on escaped/released convicts and mental patients, known neighborhood troublemakers, and other "usual suspects" like the known-to-be-a-creepy-masher-on-high-school-girls Joe? Even before the internet, such records were generally pretty widely available to law enforcement, though it took longer to retrieve them from more distant jurisdictions.
9) After the transvestite incident, when the police thought to check on Joe at his apartment, it didn't occur to them to get a warrant for what they could easily foresee might turn into a search-and-seizure operation even though they only initially wanted him for questioning?
10) Another question about how the magic works: for whatever reason, cameras reveal the disguised person's true form, even though other inanimate objects not subject to mind control (such as mirrors) don't for some reason. Yet the audio recording equipment on the very same news camera that revealed "Jo's" real appearance as Joe is still picking up "Jo's" feminine voice? What's so special about cameras, and why doesn't anything else record Joe's true form while he's in his "Jo" disguise?