It’s been many years since The Sadist bumped Deep Blue Sea out of the top five of the SMS Watchability Index. It wasn’t a total package deal. Slotting The Sadist so high in the Index, indeed, the fact it made the Index at all, was due to the singular performance of one Arch Hall, Jr. as a psychotic spree killer. His squinty sneer, like squishing down the face of a chubby baby, combined with his delivery and his ersatz aggressive body language, was a treat of gangster flick-style exaggeration. He was like a Saturday Night Live version of James Cagney, only he wasn’t joking. Continue reading “The Choppers”
Some of Those Responsible: Arch Hall Jr
The Sadist
This film was up in the air. There was much debate upstairs about where this film should be categorized. It is clearly a b-movie, but it’s also shot very well, by a cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond, who would go on to win an Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Writer/director John Landis doesn’t have anything in his filmography that would make potential viewers think he had a movie like this in him, yet this film is gripping from beginning to end, and, while being steeped in noir tropes and cliché of the era, has moments of true shock and unpredictability. But, despite how excellent is this movie, I have to slot it into Shitty Movie Sundays, for one reason, and one reason only: Arch Hall, Jr.
From 1963, The Sadist is a noir thriller that is one of many films inspired by the real-life crimes of Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, who went on a killing spree in 1958. Their analogues in this film are Charles Tibbs (Hall), and Judy Bradshaw (Marilyn Manning). Continue reading “The Sadist”