Such a frustrating disappointment

Excellent but underrated film

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

John Savage (an appropriate name for an actor playing a Norman Bates type character in a horror film) costars as Ann Sothern's son, and he's just come home from a two-year stint in prison. He had been caught up in a gang rape, depicted in the opening moments of the film, but was innocent at the time. Now that he's out and living with mama again, he wants revenge on the people who put him behind bars. He becomes a serial killer, and as the film progresses, we watch him deal with his homicidal rages. In an interview years later, director Curtis Harrington said that people praised the film for accurately showing what motivates a young man to be a compulsive murderer. I am not sure if a guy being kissed by his mother would exactly prompt him to go off on a bunch of killing sprees. Also, there are some scenes where he flirts with the idea of killing someone-- specifically, an incident in a swimming pool where he violently dunks Cindy Williams but does not drown her. If he had such impulses to kill, what would have stopped him? Why is he toying around with the idea of killing an innocent girl staying at his mother's place. If he was full of rage, wouldn't he just take care of business and get it over with the first time (he ends up killing her later in the movie). While I think the film definitely has some weak spots, the similarities between THE KILLING KIND and PSYCHO are obvious. In a way, this 1973 film plays out like a version of Norman Bates being released and coming back to the motel, where his mother is still alive after all. Can a guy like this ever be cured? Curtis Harrington suggests in this story that he cannot be cured, cannot be saved, and that eventually the mother must do away with him, in order to save the rest of society from the monster she's created. Perhaps we can look at the scene where his mother murders him to be a form of incestuous suicide (my phrase). Seems like heady stuff, doesn't it? The subtext that Harrington weaves throughout the story is that the young man was innocent of the incident that sent him to prison in the beginning, because he was impotent and couldn't get it on with the victim of the gang rape. So maybe when he's toying with Cindy Williams in the pool, he is toying with his own power over females. But how much of this is meant to be an indictment about his own sexuality, we cannot really tell. Instead, as the murderous impulses flare up, we are shown that he is now increasingly violent-- perhaps because when he was in prison, he learned to start liking things rough. Or is it because he's been smothered with so much mother love, like Norman and Mrs. Bates, that he is lashing out, like any good boy would...?

The people giving this film high ratings have got to be nuts. Very poorly paced, amateurishly directed (almost to the point of "home video camera" amateur) and mediocre acting makes this a film to strenuously avoid at all costs.Indeed, there are some "twisted" scenes in this film but nothing that could't be done by walking out in nature with a video camera and randomly killing wildlife. The mother figure had absolutely nothing in her on-screen persona to suggest something that would drive someone crazy, and the actual "madness" displayed by the crazy guy was utterly ridiculous. Also, cyanide does *not* gently put a person to sleep. The pacing was so slow and boring that I caught myself checking the time on the DVD player repeatedly, wishing it would end for god's sake. Almost praying that it would end. I came very close to just turning it off, but it was barely interesting enough in a "just to see what happens" sort of way.Avoid this film, do yourself a favor -- get outside and get some fresh air, do *anything* but watch this movie.

I watched this early 70's flik last night expecting a decent film. While it wasn't too bad, I was disappointed by it. After being forced to participate unwillingly in a rape by his friends one day at the beach, our unfortunate son gets sent to prison for 2 years. Upon his release at first things seem somewhat normal as he adjusts to life on the outside once again. But after calling the girl him and his friends raped 2 years before and vaguely threatening her, he starts reliving the rape in his mind and starts thinking that revenge is a good thing. A few murders later, which by the way, are basically bloodless and not at all violent despite other reviews, his mother whom he lives with, starts putting the pieces together that her son may not be a very good boy. With an ending that is meant to draw sympathy from the audience, I found it completely unbeleivable and very down played. The acting by the mother and son was strangely accurate, yet something about the film left me disappointed.

I spent a long time looking for this film and it was worth it. It is no ordinary schlock film. It is an intelligent, well acted thriller about a misfit, his mom who is part of his problem and his inability to cope with the world. There isn't much in the way of scares but the tone of the film is suspenseful throughout. There isn't that much gore in the film either but The Killing Kind will still leave a lasting impression. John Savage is a standout in the lead and he gets good support from the women in the cast. It must have been rough for Ann Southern to take on a role that is so unglamorous.