Coventry Review of The Killing Kind

The Killing Kind (1973)

Are you a good boy? No mommy, I'm stark raving mad!

[7/10 · 8 February 2010]

If you talk about an attention-grabbing intro … "The Killing Kind" has one! The first sequences immediately depict a vicious group rape underneath a pier and, even though he refuses, the young Terry Lambert is literally forced to participate by his "friends". The scene is quite grim, uncomfortable and raunchy. Very exploitation like, as a matter a fact, which is quite interesting and surprising since I only know director Curtis Harrington from a handful of "soft" and "classy" horror movies like "Devil Dog" and the Shelley Winters double-feature "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo" and "What's the Matter with Helen?". Either way, it's a very remarkable film. Two years later, Terry is freed from prison and returns home to his beloved mommy. Terry and his mother Thelma have a bit of an unusual relationship, as they make fun of previous tenants that died of colony cancer and organize bizarre photo shoots by between the two of them the pool. Whilst mom is putting up more pictures of her son than necessary, Terry is growing into a despicable little pervert and psychopath. He makes sinister calls to the "slut" who got him sent to prison, nearly drowns the new tenant (who's an aspiring model) in the pool and scares elderly ladies to death by executing rats in front of them. But Terry is capable of committing crimes that are much viler as well. Like murder. Also, Terry's bad boy behavior catches the attention of his 35-year-old spinster neighbor, who's a bored librarian in desperate need of some sexual deviance. Too bad for her Terry prefers to be left alone in his sickly private universe of perverted thoughts. "The Killing Kind" is a very gritty and occasionally unpleasant film. It's very low-budget, but with a continuously foreboding and unnerving Grindhouse ambiance. None, and I really do mean NONE, of the characters in this film appear to be sane or normal. They are downright demented, on the contrary, like the neighbor with her rape fantasies and mommy photographing her son under the shower! Even the cute young model is messed up in her head for staying in that house after Terry nearly drowned her. The script is weird and incoherent, and there's actually not a real story to narrate at all, apart from the obvious 'Terry is a ticking time-bomb waiting to go off'. "The Killing Kind" reminded me of the British late 60's gem "Twisted Nerve", as both films deal with youthful psychopaths in an even crazier surrounding. Exactly like Martin Durnley in "Twisted Nerve", Terry is an unpredictable and petrifying character constantly altering his behavior between a dangerous delinquent and a handsome young lad with high intellectual capacities. This is surely one of the most strangely unsettling exploitation movies of the seventies I've ever seen, but it's definitely fascinating enough to keep you watch. Too bad that the disturbing climax leaves so many questions unanswered. My best attempt at summarizing "The Killing Kind" would be: a bad seed thriller with an adult protagonists and an incredible amount of perverted undertones. Ann Sothern and John Savage are very good and suitably creepy as the mother and son and, after this film, I'm deeply impressed by the versatility of director Curtis Harrington. Recommended, but perhaps only to avid, experienced and slightly deranged fellow cult fanatics.