Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Violated (1953) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Greenwich Village comes under attack by a psycho who is stalking women. Not only is he killing them but he's also scalping them. The lead investigator (Mitchell Kowall) teams up with a psychiatrist (Jason Niles) as they try to determine the killer who might just be a released sex offender.For 1953, VIOLATED is pretty hot stuff from start to finish. This is basically an exploitation film that mixes horror and film noir elements and the end result is fairly entertaining even if there are many flaws with the picture. If you're familiar with the 1980 slasher MANIAC you'll know that the lead character there scalped his victims. That film was heavily influenced by the 1966 film AROUSED. Well, I think it's safe to say that MANIAC also borrowed from this picture.The first thing you'll notice about this picture is that fact that it's working on a very small budget. I know noirs made a name for themselves by having small budgets but this here is a lot lower than you'd typically expect. What really sets the film apart isn't its story so much but the fact that it's willing to push the boundaries of good taste. After all, this here was seven years before PSYCHO and you've got a sex maniac, a psycho stalking women and a burlesque subplot where there are plenty of ladies not wearing too many clothes.Those exploitation elements is what keeps the film alive and moving throughout its short 67-minute running time. The performances are very hit and miss and the majority of them would be called amateurish to say the least. The lack of any real acting talent makes for a documentary like feel and the music score by Tony Mottola really adds a lot of sleaze. VIOLATED is a film that should probably be better known than it is.

"Violated" is a film about a homicidal photographer. Wait a minute, this description also fits to "Peeping Tom". Yes, there are many similarities - but also many dissimilarities - between those films.The similarities: Both perpetrators have a strenuous relationship with women. The crimes in both cases are caused by unpleasant childhood memories.Mark in "Peeping Tom" was used as a guinea pig for his father's psychological experiments on fear and the nervous system. Jan in "Violated" discovered that his mother's lover stroke her long hair, which triggered both his hatred of women and hair fetishism. He cuts off the hair of his victims after he killed them.The dissimilarities: "Peeping Tom" had the advantage of being made on a large budget with high-classed actors by one of Great Britain's most reputable directors, Michael Powell. The film was shot in Eastmancolor."Violated" was made on a shoestring budget by Walter Strate, his only feature film. Some of the actors were amateurs and they only appeared in this film. To be honest, most of the acting (also by the few professional actors) is quite unskillful. A reviewer on IMDb.com has, however, claimed that this adds more realism to the film. It was shot in gritty black and white on location in New York City.Mark in "Peeping Tom" incorporated his work as a photographer in the murders. Jan in "Violated" doesn't do that, although he kills a couple of his models.Mark is a handsome guy in his twenties, while Jan is an unattractive man in his forties.It is a matter of personal taste if you label this film as a noir or not. I think that Tony Mottolas moody guitar-playing expresses the loneliness and hardships of New York City's unfortunate residents, giving the film a touch of noir at least in the soundtrack.

With mesmerizing music by Tony Mottola, vintage shots of some out of the way New York City locations and a plethora of creepy characters, this cheaply shot thriller is a film way ahead of its time. A serial killer is stalking models from some of New York's sleaziest agencies, literally scalping them and leaving their corpses out in public. The detectives head into the world of New York's biggest low lifes and find out that some of these female victims weren't necessarily "ladies". Shots of such changed neighborhoods as the 14th Street Arcade, the Bellvue Sanatarium (still in operation as a men's shelter), Greenwich Village and the West Side Highway dominate the photographer's eye as sometimes moving, often creepy music brings the viewer into a view of the Big Apple that they may never have witnessed before.For this type of independent film (which seems like something that John Cassavettes might have done early in his film career), the actors are all unprofessionals, some of them bit players from other movies, but mainly people who made only this film and no others. Their performances cannot be described as acting, but many of them seem so natural that it becomes even spookier. When you compare this to the number of low-budget movies that did manage to get a general release (and featured truly wretched acting by paid professionals), "Violated" is a very refreshing discovery because it seems very true to life in a totally demented, horrifying way. The film really delves into the mind of its leading character, played by the scary looking William Holland, and while you definitely will find him repulsive, you begin to understand what does drive somebody being held together only by a string of sanity into the realm of the diabolical, and so the film ends up working on many different levels: psychological thriller, horror, film noir, and social drama.

This is a wonderful period piece with the feel of Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss"; made around the same time. Though clumsy in places, it's still more professional and better than "Kiss", and perhaps as interesting a visual walk through fifties New York City.A homicidal photographer hunts down and kills women who reject him, until he is caught by a sweaty, working class cop. An interestingly progressive view of a maniac, the killer is a kind man caught in a compulsion he cannot control. Many of the actors seem to be real people playing themselves; though this is for the most part more effectively done than in many more "respectable" films.When the stripper snaps "You make my skin crawl, you jerk!" it chills to the bone. New Yorkers may find many locations still recognizable, and you gotta love the big poodle. According to IMDB, no one here was ever involved in anotherfilm but the producer, who went on to bring us the films of the notorious Andy Milligan. Too bad, much talent is on hand. Find a copy!