Juvenile Hell: Part 5

The Sadist (James Landis, 1963)

If there was a film equivalent to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, then James Landis' brutal crime thriller, The Sadist is a valid candidate. A diamond in the rough from producer Arch Hall Sr; a man synoymous with giving the world the prehistoric, trashfest Eegah (1962) and a multitude of other time wasters.

At the risk of it sounding like a cliché, what makes The Sadist such a remarkable film, is how ahead of its time it is. Its bleak tone and subversive nature come across as anachronistic in comparison to other crime thrillers from the early sixties. If anything, The Sadist displays the nihilsim and savagery from notorious seventies pictures, à la Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972) or Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chaisaw Massacre (1973). 

The film introduces a trio of school teachers whose car has broken down at a remote desert garage en route to a Dodgers baseball game. We learn about each teacher's background and motivations, while simultaneously discovering something is amiss at the garage / junkyard. This setting is the only location for much of the film's run time until the climactic finale.

Loaded in the favour of its volatile psychopath, Arch Hall Jr plays the titular, denim-clad Charlie Tibbs. He has plenty of bullets to spare, is able to second-guess his wholesome hostages, and toys with them with such a level of sadistic cruelty, he would make Krug Stillo proud. In one particular scene he reveals how he'll grant one of his potential victims fifteen minutes of extra life if they can repair a vehicle. They're going to die by his hand, it's just a case of when. Despite mainly whispering in his ear, Tibbs' girlfriend, Judy, is also something of a dangerousn wild child. They really compliment one another and make for a convincing psychotic couple.

For what is essentially an exploitation movie, the biggest surprise is just how well it's made. The Sadist makes excellent use of its limited location, along with it being blessed with some stylish camera work by Vilmos Zsigmond, whose credits include Deliverance (1972), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and The Deer Hunter (1978). This keeps the film looking and feeling fresh. Of course, fancy camera work is meaningless without a compelling story and competent performances, which the film has in abundance. Since Hall Jr's dad produced this picture, it reeks of nepotism like his other films, but given that this is a thriller made on a relative shoe-string budget, it's fairly forgivable. In any case, Hall Jr's performance is exceptionally good in the film, and he doesn't chew scenes like Sofia Coppola did when she was miscast in The Godfather Part III (1990).

The Sadist would be the first feature film to be based on real life spree killer Charles Starkweather and his accomplice girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate. Eventually, Terrence Malick's Badlands (1993) and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994) would also follow suit in in adaptating the notorious young couple to film. Sadly that's left the The Sadist to fall by the wayside, which is a shame since this film doesn't deserve to be forgotten for laying down such an archetypal psychos in love template.

One of those films that I've heard about for many years, but never really got around to watching until this month. Fortunately, The Sadist lived up to my expectations. Not only is it a great film in its own right, but given its historical legacy, it's perhaps an important one, too.