Killing Kind

This genuinely perverse horror film stars John Savage as a young man forced to participate in the beachfront gang rape of Sue Bernard by his nasty friends. After two years in jail, he returns to the boardinghouse run by his mother (Ann Sothern), who does things like kissing him on the mouth and photographing him in the shower. Before long, he freaks out and strangles a cat while peeping at a new tenant (Cindy Williams), then almost drowns the poor girl in the pool before slashing her panties with a razor and choking her in the bathtub. He forces Bernard's car off a cliff, then makes his lawyer (Ruth Roman) drink herself stupid at knifepoint before setting her on fire. Savage and Sothern are fabulous and Luana Anders is creepy as the librarian next door who keeps trying to seduce the disturbed man. Quite a twisted little chiller, with several priceless bizarre moments like a dream sequence featuring a diapered Savage in a crib on the beach surrounded by laughing neighbors. The ubiquitous Gary Graver did 2nd unit photography. Robert Firsching.