The Killing Kind (1973/Dark Sky Films)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C     Extras: C     Film: C

 

 

Curtis Harrington is one of those directors who had an interesting journeyman filmmaker run, even if his films were not always original, often awkward and unintentionally funny at times they should not have been.  He was ambitious however, more so than most new filmmakers are today and that is why people still talk about him and his work is still being issued on DVD.  Dark Sky recently issued his little-seen 1973 film The Killing Kind with Ann Sothern (the voice of My Mother, The Car) as the domineering mother (though even the motherhood is in question) of a young loner played by John Savage.

 

The film opens with a gang rape scene where Terry (Savage) is forced to participate against his will in the brief pre-title sequence, then it turns out he has gone to jail serving for a crime he alone did not commit if you can say he committed it at all.  We never find out if the others were implicated, but in typical Harrington style, this is thrown out the door so the film can go on.

 

However, some of the blame has to go to the Tony Chechales/George Edwards screenplay which plays fast and loose with psychology, psychosis and has major issues throughout.  The actors are all good, especially Savage on the upswing of stardom and even a still-unknown Cindy Williams plays one of the women Terry will eventually go after because as the script tells us, because he has issues and was forced to watch a rape, then participate in one, he was turned into a serial killer of women!

 

In real life, the makers seem hell bent on turning out a lame cash-in copy of John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) and turning it into an exploitation film.  But even if you have not seen that masterwork, The Killing Kind is a wacky mess of a film that is worth a look just to seer the stars and the film’s failures.  However, if you have never seen Midnight Cowboy, you might want to see that first.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is not bad with its decent color reproduction, but detail is an issue and the print has some minor flaws throughout.  Director of Photography Mario Tosi is a talented cameraman who had already lensed the natural disaster B-movie Frogs, helped launch the original Kojak TV series lensing its pilot, then moved on to projects like Sybil, MacArthur, The Stunt Man, The Main Event and Brian De Palma’s Carrie.  His work helped save this film.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is aged and seems a generation down further than one would like, but Andrew Belling’s score is not bad and the combination is pretty god for an independent film its age.  Extras include previews for other Dark Sky releases and what looks to be the final interview with Harrington before his passing.  Among the several we have seen, it is one of the most honest and revealing he has done, giving genre fans several reasons to pick up this DVD.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo