Who payed the critics

Am I Missing Something?

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

a nice film. not convincing but seductive for its good intentions. and for the science to use different pieces for a decent result. a hotel and a crisis. few beautiful moments and slices of humor. sketches of acting. interesting music. and parts of characters lives as key of crisis. a film who may be perfect choice for nostalgics. because it preserves entire flavor of 1970 years and the innocence of a thriller who seems today prehistorical. the recipes, the clichés, the performance of actors, maybe, the music first are keys for unique atmosphere. and that represents Wicked, Wicked virtue. not the artistic potential but the air of a period in wise manner reminded. like an old photo.

Geeky misogynistic psycho electrician Jason Gant (nicely played with convincing awkwardness by Randolph Roberts) has a nasty habit of picking off lovely blonde lady guests who check in, but never check out of the swanky California seaside resort hotel he works at. Jason plans on killing spunky lounge singer Lisa James (ravishing drive-in movie goddess Tiffany Bolling in peak sultry and spirited form) next. It's up to shrewd and dashing house detective Rick Stewart (a smooth and suave performance by David Bailey) to stop the wacko before it's too late. Writer/director Richard L. Bare and cinematographer Frederick Gately make extremely inspired, inventive, and even downright ingenious use of split screen throughout almost the entire picture; they also further tart things up with a few freeze frames, a couple of superimpositions, and several sepia-tinted flashbacks which explain how Jason become a dangerously demented homicidal lunatic (yep, he was molested by some evil hag woman). Bare manages to milk a good deal of tension from the tongue-in-cheek premise, maintains a constant brisk pace, adds a generous sprinkling of cool touches (a weird old lady organist plays gloomy music cues from "The Phantom of the Opera" and Jason uses a dumbwaiter and the hotel's elaborate ventilation system to sneak around), and tosses in occasional witty moments of amusing sardonic humor (for example, a longtime hotel resident claims she was once a successful ballet dancer, but we're shown that she worked as a tawdry go-go gal at some sleazy dive instead!). The sound supporting cast helps a lot: Scott Brady as gruff, brutish Sergeant Ramsey, Edward Byrnes as swinging playboy lifeguard Hank Lassiter, Arthur O'Connell as grumpy handyman Mr. Fenley, Diane McBain as Jason's first victim Dolores Hamilton, Roger Bowen as stern, uptight manager Simmons, and ubiquitous exploitation feature regular Patrick Wright in a quick uncredited bit as an abusive jerk. Moreover, it's a total treat to see the gorgeous Bolling heartily belt out the insanely groovy theme song while slinking about on stage in a sparkly sequin dress. Philip Springer's spooky-moody score hits the atmospheric spot. The supremely macabre, gripping, and thrilling conclusion is executed with considerable style and gusto. An incredibly fun flick with a gnarly visual gimmick.

What I find so great about the horror genre is that, even though I've seen over 2500 films of different sub genres and numerous countries already, I keep stumbling upon crazy stuff nobody ever heard about. Even more incomprehensible – especially in the case of "Wicked Wicked" - is how come these movies are still so obscure and unloved? Now this certainly isn't a masterpiece of film-making, but nevertheless I would have expected a movie with such a peculiar gimmick to have some sort of loyal fan-base or at least enjoy some recognition at horror internet forums. Well, apparently not. "Wicked Wicked" remains underrated to this date, but hopefully a proper DVD-release will change that one day sooner or later. Make no mistake, however, the plot of this film is extremely rudimentary and straightforward all in favor of putting the emphasis entirely on the "Duo-Vision" gimmick. This is just a fancy term to say that the split-screen effect lasts throughout whole film. Unlike I feared, this gimmick isn't as irritating as I thought it would be, but nevertheless it's only truly creative in a handful of situations. There are a couple of highly disturbing murders taking place in a fancy Californian seaside hotel. Beautiful blond women are brutally stabbed by a maniacal culprit and their bodies dumped around the hotel. Former policeman turned security agent is asked to investigate discretely, but the bodies keep piling up at a fast pace. The case gets more personal when his beautiful blond ex-wife arrives at the hotel to put up a singing show. I don't really know why I bother to keep the killer's identity secret and even somewhat mysterious, because the film itself certainly doesn't. The culprit takes off his mask and exposes his face after the second murder already; probably to illustrate once more that the whodunit aspect of the film really wasn't the producers' main priority. And yet, despite this premature and regrettable revelation, there are multiple tiny plot components that are interesting and worth analyzing. For example, the sub plot about the hotel owner's reluctance to inform the police and his attempts to avoid negative publicity predate the similar "Jaws" plot with nearly two whole years. There's also a bizarre but engaging and original resemblance between this film's main characters and the ones from Gaston Leroux' immortal horror tale "The Phantom of the Opera". There's a pretty imaginative, yet typically rancid 70's and massively perverted twist regarding the culprit's motives to kill blond women near the end (which I really loved) and there's a neat supportive role for Spaghetti western regular Edd Byrnes as a moonlighting lifeguard. If you ever have the opportunity to watch "Wicked, Wicked" – and apparently it's occasionally programmed on TCM – please do so! It's far from being a great film, but it's definitely unique.

Wicked, Wicked is unique in that it is shot entirely in DUO-VISION (a gimmick of early 1970's cimena). Brian DePalma used this technique with great success in both Carrie and Phantom of the Paradise. The problem here is that Richard Bare is no Brian DePalma and the story is completely idiotic.the one saving grace of this film is the moment at which the duo-vision becomes "uni-vision" during the climactic moment of the story. You have to see it to appreciate the greatness of that one shot. Perhaps the director came up with that idea and then made a whole story around it?