This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

'Aroused' quotes from some big titles in film history; the 'shadow hand' running down the window from 'Nosferatu, eine Symfonie des Grauens', the shower scene with curtain (and the face that is behind it) that refers to 'Psycho' and the use mannequins that one may have seen before in 'Killer's Kiss'. I could be wrong, of course, but in any case director Anton Holden throws many beautiful black and white compositions of downtown New York at us, so there's the first big plus.Then there's the crazy story about another frustrated maniac on the loose and another frustrated cop on his tail; the acting isn't good, the lines are cheesy (most of the time; some of the ones by Djanine were pretty good) and the story has an equally cheesy way of 'evolving'. Some scenes are just (way) too long, of which the one with the black hooker is one where I didn't mind so much. There's some horror and blood, there's freeze-frames during the killings (with the dark memories of the killer's mommy in audio) and there's the wild wall-paper in the kitchen of the cop's wife... who could ask for more? O yes, there was some lovely vintage nudity, but I'd expected more.Well, I'm being a little too enthusiastic maybe, but it's an overall fun vintage exploitation flick with a terrifically merciless ending (indeed, that must have been the inspiration for 'that other horror film').A big 7 out of 10.

Another NYC sexploitation film, and one of the good ones. Competently directed by Anton Holden and even pretty well acted, with a dark and grungy noirish feel. Ever since witnessing his abusive mom bedding down with her many lovers as a tormented youth, a sexually fearful young man is now compelled to murder all those dirty and trashy "whores" he encounters in Manhattan. But the lesbian/hooker lover of this psychotic's latest victim vows to find and castrate him, with the aid of her street-walking friends. It seems that this could have been a precursor to William Lustig's MANIAC; the disturbed killer not only has deranged flashbacks, but also lives in a run-down, mannequin-infested city apartment. *** out of ****

Aroused is a moody hooker-killer drama and a good example of 60s sexploitation flicks. Short, violent, and loaded with discordant jazz, this is only for fans of the genre. Some of the girls are fairly pretty, and the acting is generally adequate, but if it were made in 2004, it would be rated R and star A-list actors. It's a deeper psychological look at the killer than your typical Showtime skin flick, but that hardly makes up for all that bad jazz; but it does feature a nice Psycho ripoff that gives its audience what Hitchcock couldn't.

Another NYC-made sex film with an ugly psychological underside. A prostitute and a police detective team up to catch the sicko who offed the hooker's lesbian lover. While the detective trails another hooker who offers to work as bait for the killer, the first hooker covertly checks out the apartment of the bartender who works in the bar all the working girls operate out of and finds lots of mannequins in fetish-like poses. Seems the bartender was raised by an abusive hooker mother, and his murders are his way of getting even with all the ladies of the night. But the ladies have hatched a little revenge plot of their own....An intriguing mix of nudity, crime drama, and psychodrama, with a degree of character development uncommon to such films. Worth a look.