***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Little more, really, than a '70s exploitation flick, Sweet Kill (a.k.a. The Arousers) has a few points of interest beyond its plenitude of bared breasts and buttocks. First of all, it marks the very early directing and screenwriting debut of Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile). Beginning in the 1960s, many of them in Roger Corman's raffish moviemaking academy, a number of directors who would later achieve prominence made their bones in horror schlock and soft-core porn; Hanson would wait until the '80s to do his next film.
Second, its star is Tab Hunter, who's the best thing in it. Plainly, he had more talent than his dispiriting filmography and his reputation as a 60s-beefcake golden boy (and worse) might lead one to believe. Here he's a high-school gym teacher (this doesn't lead to much, and his buttocks stay chastely sheathed) living in Venice, California. He has a big problem, though. Owing to some cloudily referenced incident in his boyhood (which seems to involve Oedipal incest), he can't get it up. His rage and humiliation lead him down a dark path. When a girl he's picked up turns aggressive after his failure, he kicks her away. As happens with such kicks, she conks her head and dies. He hides the body away in a pigeon hutch on his apartment rooftop. And from then on it seems he can function only with a fresh corpse. When attempts at normalcy prove futile (he pays a hooker to dress up, presumably as his mother, and lie immobile), he prowls the beaches with his butcher knife...
And that's about it. The movie's cheapness is often evident in its sound levels, which veer erratically. The `thriller' angle isn't worked out, and the movie ends with a shot of Hunter à la Norman Bates in Psycho (homages to Hitchcock abound). Its most noteworthy feature is the empathy it shows for the murderer, a victim of circumstances which he cannot surmount.
Second, its star is Tab Hunter, who's the best thing in it. Plainly, he had more talent than his dispiriting filmography and his reputation as a 60s-beefcake golden boy (and worse) might lead one to believe. Here he's a high-school gym teacher (this doesn't lead to much, and his buttocks stay chastely sheathed) living in Venice, California. He has a big problem, though. Owing to some cloudily referenced incident in his boyhood (which seems to involve Oedipal incest), he can't get it up. His rage and humiliation lead him down a dark path. When a girl he's picked up turns aggressive after his failure, he kicks her away. As happens with such kicks, she conks her head and dies. He hides the body away in a pigeon hutch on his apartment rooftop. And from then on it seems he can function only with a fresh corpse. When attempts at normalcy prove futile (he pays a hooker to dress up, presumably as his mother, and lie immobile), he prowls the beaches with his butcher knife...
And that's about it. The movie's cheapness is often evident in its sound levels, which veer erratically. The `thriller' angle isn't worked out, and the movie ends with a shot of Hunter à la Norman Bates in Psycho (homages to Hitchcock abound). Its most noteworthy feature is the empathy it shows for the murderer, a victim of circumstances which he cannot surmount.