An ugly little film with no reason to be ugly. Let's use some logic here. In circumstances such as these, if there were absolutely no other women around except his mother, it is quite likely, perhaps even understandable, that a young man would start to develop sexual feelings for her. Instead of truly examining this, the film opts instead for completely unsympathetic characters, including portraying the young man as a wild animal (the "savage" of the title) who plots to kill his father and rape his mother. Nice, eh? The filmmakers might have made their point better (assuming they were trying to make a point at all) by adding a little sympathy to everyone's plight. Maybe they could have had the young man feel some horror over his desire for his mother? Maybe mom could have agonized over whether or not she owes something to her son under these extreme conditions? Any of this would have made for a better movie. Instead, the boy is a stalking predator while mom runs around the movie shrieking about how fearful she is of him. Too bad; there was promising subject matter here, boldly ignored by George C. Scott and writers Max Ehrlich and Frank De Felitta. A real waste.
Review of The Savage Is Loose
