The Marquis Would Be Proud

Film: The Sadist
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

Anyone who watched any Mystery Science Theater 3000 knows who Arch Hall Jr. is. While he only appeared in a single MST3K movie, his turn as the allegedly romantic lead in teen scream film Eegah! is legendary if only because he is legitimately less appealing than the film’s caveman, played by Richard Kiel. The Sadist puts Hall in the sort of role he was born to play—a stunted, psychopathic murderer. You watch Eegah! and you’ll wonder how this kid thought he had a shot at a movie career. The next year he makes this, and you wonder why he didn’t have a longer career playing psychotics.

The plot to The Sadist is as simple as they come. A trio of teachers, Carl (Don Russell), Ed (Richard Alden), and Doris (Helen Hovey in her only movie role) are on their way to a Dodgers game in L.A. on a Sunday. They have a bit of car trouble and are forced to pull into a service station in the middle of nowhere. The place seems to be deserted, though, and strangely so. There are plates on the table inside, and the food is still warm. Ed starts looking for the part that they need in the junked cars while Ed investigates the area.

What they find is Charlie Tibbs (Hall) and his girlfriend Judy (Marilyn Manning). Charlie and Judy have entered California from Arizona, and have been thrill-killing their way across the highway, leaving a trail of bodies behind them. Charlie’s strategy of staying ahead of the law is simple, but effective—he uses a car until it runs out of gas, then he and Judy hitch a ride for their next car, kill anyone who helps them, and drive off in that car.

There are a few really surprising moments in The Sadist, a movie clearly made on the cheap with a cast of nobodies, and the entire thing is far better than the cast, the budget, and the premise. This is a sort of “youth in revolt” movie, the equivalent of a local theater troupe putting on Rebel Without a Cause. Often, you do that with someone like Arch Hall Jr. and you end up with MST3K movies like Wild Rebels. Here, you get something much closer to Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. It’s exploitative, but it’s a lot better than you expect.

An example would probably explain what I mean better. Carl, who is in his 50s, is the first person to become Charlie’s target. After hurting him, Charlie tells Judy to get him a soda. She does, and as he opens it, Charlie very calmly tells Carl that when he’s finished, he’s going to shoot him in the head, so anything he has to say, he needs to say now. Carl spends the next few minutes pleading with Charlie and Judy…and when Charlie finishes his bottle of Coke, he calmly puts a bullet in Carl’s head. It’s shocking and surprisingly effective, because this is the kind of movie where you expect that the innocents are going to make it out alive. This is true even when Charlie makes it clear at the outset that no one is getting out alive, and that Ed is only staying alive long enough to fix the car.

The Sadist is unpolished and raw, but this is what makes it effective. In a way, it feels like there is a direct line from this movie to things like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. It’s not as brutal or unflinching as The Last House on the Left, but it’s definitely something that leans in that direction. That’s high praise for a movie with a budget less than the makeup budget of the last Oscar winner and starring a guy who looks like he should be in a haunted house or have a rubber mask made of his face. But the fact that this is unflinching and brutal is what makes it work.

This is an odd little “lightning in a bottle” movie. Shift the tone or the performances one way or the other a bit and this is a movie that ends up as an MST3K classic. Instead, it’s an upsetting thriller that is a lot more brutal than you’d think going in. It doesn’t hurt that the cinematographer on this weird little picture was Vilmos Zsigmond, Oscar winner for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and widely considered one of the best to ever have the job.

As a final note, this film is allegedly based loosely on Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. Their killing spree was also adapted at least in spirit as Badlands and Natural Born Killers. This might be the least of these three movies, but it’s certainly in heady company.

Why to watch The Sadist: It’s surprisingly tense and effective.
Why not to watch: Arch Hall Jr. is one ugly son of a bitch.