⭐️⭐️
The film opens on a scuzzy-lookin’ dude driving and thinking about murder right before he loses control of his car and flies off a hill. This, of course, ends in the usual manner for all seventies car crashes with the vehicle exploding into a ball of fire. Cars were flaming death traps just a few decades back. We then join two cops in pursuit of a private investigator (Hey! It’s John Ashton!) who is acting out of sorts. Seemingly, he has a courteous relationship with police but he’s evading them on his motorcycle and then shooting at them. This ends with him taking a bullet to the neck. Goodbye, John Ashton! Before he shuffles off this mortal coil, he lets the police know it’s all thanks to an extortion angle that went bad and some stolen funds. Following the death of her husband (the scuzzy guy who is now a crispy corpse), Brenda begins to suffer a nervous breakdown. Luckily, her sister Millie Hartman (who is the one who had her funds stolen by her sister’s hubby) is there to care for her after they have been separated for years. Millie had a stint in the sanitarium and the two are attempting to fix their fractured relationship. We’re caught up on the case as the cops talk and play pool and even though Millie has refused to upset her sister with bringing up the bullshit her husband had gotten into, the cops are going to keep on digging. Millie invites Brenda to stay with her and things start getting a little freaky. Millie claims to be in tune with the stars if you’re into that kinda trip and she also claims to still hear the voice of the their dead mother. One cop goes undercover by surfing at the beach the sisters are staying on and trying to get close to Brenda. Is Brenda going insane? Should Millie have been released from the nuthouse? Is Millie scheming? Is the supernatural actually working against the siblings? You’ll find out if you don’t fall asleep. It’s your standard gaslighting flick just viewed through a lens of molasses. Trust me, the addition of the police investigation angle doesn’t add any more excitement to things. Kathleen Freeman shows up as a housekeeper named Hilda and that probably doesn’t mean much to anyone outside of me and the fourteen other people who remember The Willies. We even get the standard-issue mentally challenged handyman hanging around to be all creepy and sharpen an ax menacingly while perving on Brenda in his simple-minded way. Hilarious corpse makeup, attempted murder and the inevitable poetic comeuppance add some pulse to a mostly DOA “thriller”. This doesn’t even feel like a TV movie made on the spot, it feels like an episode of some forgotten cop program that was cruelly stretched out to movie length.
No comments:
Post a Comment