1963 was such a productive year for horror/exploitation that even Arch Hall, Jr. was involved in a better than normal effort. The Sadist is the film Hall Jr. will most likely be remembered for (if he is remembered at all). Here, Junior pivots away from the low-rent Elvis Presley persona that daddy Arch Hall, Sr. was crafting for him to instead play a cartoon psychopath inspired by the real-life sadist Charles Starkweather (in the first of several films loosely based on Starkweather’s infamous 1958 killing spree—to make sure we get the reference, writer/director James Landis names the antagonist “Charlie”). The Sadist is easily the best film of both this actor and this director, which is not to say that it’s great cinema. Surprisingly, the best thing about it is Hall’s energetic performance. Away from daddy, Junior bounces through the entire film with a near-perfect trash performance.
While Landis wasn’t quite the hack that Arch Hall, Sr. was, he still hampers the production with rusty pacing and ill-conceived narration (supplied by Hall, Sr). The headlines of murderous mayhem proved to be the inspiration for the Landis/Hall Jr. team. They worked together in two additional features: 1964’s The Nasty Rabbit, about Russian spies smuggling killer bunnies into the U.S.A., and 1965’s Deadwood 76, which features Junior as a singing Billy the Kid. Both were written by Daddy Hall and again reveal a lead who clearly wants to be elsewhere. Junior seemed to reserve all of his enthusiasm and hammy tricks for The Sadist. He giggles. He slaughters. Once The Sadist locates Hall as its steam, it transforms into a model of creaky relentlessness. The small cast is exceptional, with Helen Hovey memorable as Doris, who is pushed to the verge of victimization and fights back. Mother Nature serves Charlie his sentence.
At one end of the 1963 genre pendulum were productions from class directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds) and Robert Wise (The Haunting). Francis Ford Coppola got his feet wet directing Dementia 13 for Roger Corman, and second-tier director Don Sharp helmed one of Hammer’s better non-Terence Fisher opuses, Kiss of the Vampire. At the opposite end of the taste and quality spectrum was Herschell Gordon Lewis‘ Blood Feast. Alternately (and arguably) dubbed the first splatter film and the first notable example of torture porn, Blood Feast catapulted horror into the art form for America’s white trash masses. Not surprisingly, John Waters is among the filmmakers who Continue reading 1963 EXLPOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE: THE SADIST, BLOOD FEAST, & THE WHIP AND THE BODY