Steve Belmont, Sunday school teacher and part-time security guard, has a big chip on his shoulder towards the opposite sex, and moonlights as a serial strangler.
"The Mojave Murderer" leads an interesting double life, but he never smiles and has trouble holding down a job. While on guard duty, he repeatedly threatens a woman (in front of his boss, who doesn't hear him!), gets the sack, and turns to his snot-nosed cousin/neighbor for a job as a supermarket janitor.
Things start looking up -- two or three victims later -- when Steve starts dating a woman he only comes close to killing. Then he gets a job as a psychologist! His misogynist tendencies come out in the end, though, and before he can finish off the girlfriend, she shoots him.
Director Don Jones has made some other sick movies about sociopaths, such as THE LOVE BUTCHER and SCHOOLGIRLS IN CHAINS. Although MURDERLUST isn't his most aberrant effort, it's a quite grim and disturbing rape fantasy. Mostly, it dwells on poorly staged stalking sequences that rely on women who conveniently walk right into the killer's arms. For example, an unshaven, sloppily-dressed Steve entices a school girl into his apartment with promises of making her a famous model. She buys this line of bull and, once they're isolated, finds a gun pointed at the top of her head, and demands sex before he strangles her.
In spite of this dubious expertise in showing women in pain, Jones gives even less credibility to the expository drama. Even after Steve knows the cops have found his stash of bodies in the desert, he continues to drop them off in the same place. To the film's credit, there is something sly about dropping this insufferable character among the well-manicured lawns of Southern California suburbia, where the cops don't bother him because he's white and wears a tie.
