A great cast aides this truly entertaining serial killer movie into becoming something unique. Jim Hutton stars as an institutionalized man accused of murder who claims he's innocent and with the help of a fellow inmate, learn some magic of voodoo and how to kill people without actually pulling the trigger or plunging in the knife or pushing them off a cliff. His doctor, Julie Adams, works with police detective Paul Burke to uncover the truth, hoping to find that he's innocent even though all of the victims were somehow connected to Hutton.
A nurse is scalded to death in a shower she can't get out of; a man is locked in his car which is out of his control and goes off a cliff. An older man about to have sex with a younger woman is interrupted by the sound of someone yelling at him and meets his own death by shooting out at nothing. The best segment however has to be Joseph Della Sorte singing opera when he has a very crushing experience, one that is later repeated on cassette tape and had me chuckling in spite of the shocking nature. Such great veterans as Nehemiah Persoff, Neville Brand, Aldo Ray, Whit Bissell, Rod Cameron and even Della Reese appear, and the film voice directed and written by Ray Danton who was married to the beautiful Adams at the time. Reese as a customer at a butcher shop is hysterically funny.
It's ironic that just 8 years later, Adams would be playing a psychotic killer on the daytime soap opera "Capitol", and I enjoyed her tender, compassionate performance in this. Hutton gets to show the many facets of the troubled character, and at times, the audience really sympathizes with him. There's a bit of gratuitous nudity, and some humor concerning the young woman whose older lover is killed having to say over and over while taking a lie detector test that she was lying on the floor with no clothes on. So while some of the stuff going on seems unnecessary, it adds to the enjoyment. Definitely worthy of being a cult classic.
A nurse is scalded to death in a shower she can't get out of; a man is locked in his car which is out of his control and goes off a cliff. An older man about to have sex with a younger woman is interrupted by the sound of someone yelling at him and meets his own death by shooting out at nothing. The best segment however has to be Joseph Della Sorte singing opera when he has a very crushing experience, one that is later repeated on cassette tape and had me chuckling in spite of the shocking nature. Such great veterans as Nehemiah Persoff, Neville Brand, Aldo Ray, Whit Bissell, Rod Cameron and even Della Reese appear, and the film voice directed and written by Ray Danton who was married to the beautiful Adams at the time. Reese as a customer at a butcher shop is hysterically funny.
It's ironic that just 8 years later, Adams would be playing a psychotic killer on the daytime soap opera "Capitol", and I enjoyed her tender, compassionate performance in this. Hutton gets to show the many facets of the troubled character, and at times, the audience really sympathizes with him. There's a bit of gratuitous nudity, and some humor concerning the young woman whose older lover is killed having to say over and over while taking a lie detector test that she was lying on the floor with no clothes on. So while some of the stuff going on seems unnecessary, it adds to the enjoyment. Definitely worthy of being a cult classic.