The Thursday Horror Picture Show will screen The Sadist on Thursday, Feb. 9, at 9:15 p.m. at The Grail Moviehouse, hosted by Xpress movie critic Scott Douglas.
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The Sadist
Movie Information
In Brief: I canceled The Sadist in November to make way for a bit of post-election counter-programming, although in retrospect, this might have been almost as appropriate as what I screened instead. We're finally getting back around to this creepy thriller about a madman with his finger on the trigger and a penchant for pushing people around.
Better than most B-movies have any right to be, James Landis' The Sadist is a surprisingly powerful post-noir proto-slasher that was the first to deal with the twisted true story of Charlie Starkweather, a tale that would later be addressed by Terrence Malick in Badlands and Oliver Stone in Natural Born Killers. This film benefits greatly from a bizarre, yet profoundly unnerving, performance from Arch Hall, Jr., whose brief career was entirely conceived by his father, drive-in movie producer Arch Hall, Sr. What really distinguishes The Sadist from other films of its low-budget ilk, however, is the atmosphere created by future Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, making his U.S. feature debut. Pulpy, disturbing and cheap, cult-exploitation cinema doesn't get much better than The Sadist.
The Thursday Horror Picture Show will screen The Sadist on Thursday, Feb. 9, at 9:15 p.m. at The Grail Moviehouse, hosted by Xpress movie critic Scott Douglas.
Score: | |
Genre: | Exploitation Thriller |
Director: | James Landis |
Starring: | Arch Hall, Jr., Marilyn Manning, Richard Alden, Helen Hovey, Don Russell |
Rated: | NR |
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