Violated

Low-budget flick, filmed in NYC, about a photographer who kills women and cuts off locks of their hair. Producer William Holland plays the photographer, and screenwriter William Mishkin (I know, these are real household names) has a bit. An exotic dancer named Lili Dawn plays one of the victims. She's not bad looking if you can imagine Hedy Lamarr with about twenty more pounds on her. The musical score consists of a guitar played by Tony Mottola.

Except for the 1950s view of the city, this film doesn't have much to offer. The acting is pretty bad, and the dialogue is worse. As the film's shrink explains, "the human mind is a vast domain. When its door is unhinged it's open to an endless variety of queer happenings." Like this movie.

The story follows the police investigation of a serial killer with a hair fetish. Lt Mack (Mitchell Kowall) and Det. Dana (William Martel) enlist the help of a psychiatrist Dr Jason (Jason Niles) who we first see checking up with one of his patients, George (Fred Lambert), who has recently been released from jail. We also follow the story of photographer Jan (Wim Holland) and Susan Grant's (Vicki Carlson) attempts to make it as a model in New York. We are also introduced to the world of burlesque where Lili Damar (Lili Dawn) is queen of the scene. At the end, Dr Jason reveals the causes of what makes the killer tick, and the film finishes in a similar way to the beginning with an encounter between a man seemingly helping out a young woman who has dropped some papers.

The film starts in quite an arty way - the soundtrack is very effective - as we see the first murder being committed. The music is good throughout the film. However, the acting is wooden and some of the dialogue is suspect, eg Susan's over-use of sentences that start "Gee....". The film is grainy and in poor quality over a certain section but the film has a novelty value. At times it feels like a silent film with a gripping soundtrack and this effect helps, in my opinion, to give this film a cult/art-house status.

Violated could have been a standard psycho-on-the-loose thriller but for director Walter Strate's keen eye for detail. Background details really bring the Greenwich Village location to life and give you insight into the characters lives and motivations even when the performances don't. The violent scenes are shockingly effective without bloodshed and are a precursor to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960) (he saw this, don't tell me he didn't). Violated perfectly illustrates the oppressive and persistent nature of the lustful men on the street all young women must contend with. It's a shame this was Strate's only film as it transcends its low budget and seedy milieu to make some solid points.

When young women start turning up dead, a couple of cops begin to hunt for the sexual predator who is killing them.

It's an exploitation film, intended to show prostitutes and maniacs, with a thin veneer of respectability added by a couple of brief talks on how psychiatric care should be better. The acting was downright poor, with the usual dull-voiced lecture by the psychiatrist, and poor line readings by everyone but the strip-club owner. That was played by William Mishkin, who spent the next quarter century producing and distributing such fare as THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! and GUTTER TRASH. Surprisingly to me, I found Pat Rich's cinematography to be pretty good, although some of his work seems like an attempt to liven up a poor piece of exploitation.

THis might have been racy in 1953, but it's nothing these days.

This is a super-cheap picture from Panther Productions. You'll notice how cheap it looks right away and has a definite homemade quality to it--with some choppy edits, lots of unknown actors, cheap music and amateurish lighting and camera-work. This does not mean it's necessarily a bad picture...but certainly one that lacks polish and looks pretty crappy. But, for an exploitation film from this era, this isn't at all unusual.

The story begins with a pretty young lady being murdered and scalped! The film actually shows very, very little when it comes to this. Throughout the story, more ladies are being murdered the same way and apparently they have a connection to a photographer. Much of the film follows him and his infatuation with a stripper who is stringing him along--the rest of the film consists of the police trying to put the pieces to the puzzle together to solve the crimes.

Overall, this is a film that looks cheap and terrible but STILL is interesting if you like exploitation flicks. To be this sort of person, you really have to look past the shabbiness of the production...and it is shabby. No real flashes of brilliance here otherwise...just a rather gritty and strange tale that seems way ahead of its time. Worth seeing...for the right sort of viewer. Being a lover of film noir would help....though this one is so poorly done I don't think most folks would consider it noir.