THE SADIST

Back in the early 60’s, a B-movie actor named Arch Hall Jr. made a half dozen films that were produced by his father, former actor Arch Sr. For all intents and purposes, Arch Jr. was little more than an Elvis wannabe, even playing a similar rock n’ roll star, Bud Eagle, in 1962’s Wild Guitar.

Most of his films are pretty forgettable, except for two that have received special attention over the years. One is Eegah!, a campy movie about a homicidal caveman (played by Richard “Jaws” Kiel from the 007 movies – he also many of the monsters in my fave 70’s television show, Kolchak: The Night Stalker) who wakes up from a long sleep to torment a group of teenagers. Arch was the squeaky-clean hero in that one, and Eegah! has the reputation of being one of the worst films ever made, up there with the work of Ed Wood.

The other film he did of note was The Sadist, a 1963 thriller that has been singled out for the exact opposite reason Eegah! has been. In The Sadist, Hall has the role of his career, and he actually does a decent job with it.

The plot is simple enough. Three teachers (two men and a woman) are driving from their small town school to the big city to see a L.A. Dodgers baseball game. On the way, their car dies and they end up near a gas station/junkyard. While the younger male teacher goes looking around for the spare part they need to fix their car, the other two teachers find it very strange that there aren’t any other people around.

That is, not until Arch shows up. He plays Charlie Tibbs, an escaped convict who has very homicidal tendencies. He’s on the road with his girlfriend Judy and he’s the reason why the previous residents of the gas station aren’t around anymore. His car has broken down too and he decides that once the teachers fix their car, he’ll take it and head on out.

The question is, when they fix the car, will he just leave or will he kill all three of them?

The rest of the movie is a steady wave of tension as the teachers try to second guess Charlie, and he proves to be more and more unpredictable and sadistic. This is the early 60’s, so The Sadist doesn’t live up to it’s name as much as it would have if it was made in let’s say 1973, but for its time its pretty gritty, and Arch Hall Jr. does an amazing job as psycho Charlie.

In fact, his performance is downright strange. He has a very weird way of speaking in this movie, that I first found very irritating. But as it goes along, the weird voice and mannerisms actually work, and you believe this guy is unstable and capable of anything. After seeing him play whitebread Elvis clones before, I was really impressed with Hall’s departure here. Too bad he didn’t do it again. By 1965, Hall’s acting career was sadly over. So we never got a chance to see him shine again.

The girl who plays Judy, Marilyn Manning, is also pretty intense – she barely speaks and seems more than a little unstable herself. In fact, she’s just as disturbed as Charlie is, and the parallels between these characters and real-life Charles Starkweather case (which also inspired Terrence Malick’s Badlands), are too obvious to miss.

The teachers are also solid actors. You care about what happens to them, and you sweat right along with them as they try to figure out crazy Charlie’s next move.

This movie is an obscure gem that definitely deserves a rental, if you can find it. Solid script, great acting, and strong direction from James Landis, lets this movie transcend its poverty-level budget. All around a great little flick!