Wicked, Wicked (1973)

A tall, well-figured platinum blonde (Diane McBain) checks into a the Grandview Hotel. She is booked into room 411, where she proceeds to get undressed and relaxed before meeting with a shady character who contacts her on the phone.

However, it's not him she has to worry about. While she was checking in a shadowy figure was watching through a removable panel in the ceiling. While she gets ready, so does he, sharpening his knives and slipping into a bellboy outfit. He accosts her in her hotel room and stabs her repeatedly, killing her and then dismembering her in the shower. He orders room service, and smuggles the body out in the service cart.

The next day housekeeper Mrs. Griswald (Patsy Garrett) notices that no one has slept in the bed, leading hotel manager Simmons (Roger Bowen) to contact security head Rick Stewart (David Bailey) about the third skip out in a short period of time. Stewart thinks there may be something more sinister happening than just guests skipping out on paying, but Simmons is more concerned about the hotel's reputation and does anything he can to stop Stewart's investigations.

Meanwhile, Stewart's ex-wife Lisa James (Tiffany Bolling) arrives for a week's booking performing at the hotel. After harshly scolding shy electrician Jason (Randolph Roberts), she befriends him and has a brief conversation with him, and he soon develops a crush. However, after wearing a blonde wig on stage, Lisa is later attacked by the masked killer in her hotel room, proving to Stewart that something is desperately wrong. The search for the killer is now on.

Wicked, Wicked is equal parts slasher film and camp comedy, as it was intended to be. While the main story isn't anything new even at that time, the main gimmick of the movie was that it was filmed in Duo-Vision, which means most of the movie as separate action happening on both sides of the screen. It's a technique that was used in a number of '70s movies, but this movie used it pretty much through-out and, surprisingly, it works. Often someone will be explaining something in one panel, while memories or the truth of what is being said is displayed in the other. It's not just used for different perspective and, being one of the first movies in stereo, the dialogue is louder on the side you're supposed to pay attention to than the other.

Predictably, the gimmick didn't go over too well and the movie is largely forgotten. Personally, I think it's less the Duo-Vision that killed it than the fact that, despite decent performances and a good job on the killer, there is a long period where practically nothing happens. I really don't care about hearing Tiffany Bolling sing or follow the romantic subplot in depth, but rather in the suspense elements. It's a shame that after making the hook something that truly enhances the movie that something as basic as pacing brings it a few notches down.

Wicked, Wicked (1973)
Duration: 95 minutes
Starring: David Bailey, Tiffany Bolling, Randolph Roberts
Director: Richard L. Bare

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Image
Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man  what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity. It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's worst
Read more

Things (1989)

Image
Most of the time when I hear a movie is the worst ever I know that is hyperbole. There are few candidates and I would even say the famous book chronicling the worst movies ever made got it wrong.  Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughably incompetent, but enjoyable.  The worst kind of films are the ones where no joy can be found in the watching experience, for reasons ranging from unlikeable characters to just sheer boredom.  A truly horrible movie is something like  Things.   This is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from Canada, filmed on 8mm and dubbed once it was completed and the makers realized most of the sound was unusable.  Director Andrew Jordan and writer Barry J. Gillis managed to grab porn star Amber Lynn for an hour to shoot her as a news reporter just so they could put her face on the video box.  Most of the music was done by Gillis, and some of it by a local band called Familiar Strangers.  It was filmed in large part in Andrew Norman's basement, and most of the props w
Read more

The Omen (1976)

Image
A movie does not have to be high art to strike a chord with the public.  The Omen was an attempt by writer David Seltzer to make some money and get a nice trip to the UK.  It just so happened that because of The Exorcist the public was hungry for more movies involving demons and such, and adding a veneer of Catholicism didn't hurt either.  The Vatican's secrets are most likely of more interest to scholars than anyone else, but a religion doesn't hang on over the centuries without creating a bit of mystery.  In this case, Seltzer settled on the Revelation of St. John, the low-fantasy portion of the Bible and, instead of an hilariously named (albeit historically correct) demon named Pazuzu, with The Omen we get the son of Satan himself.  When Robert Thorne (Gregory Peck) is informed that his child has died he visits a priest at the hospital in Rome where his wife is coalescing.  He is given an offer too good to be true: a foundling, whose mother died in childbirth, was born
Read more