A Scream in the Streets

Anytime John Tull is in a movie it is hard not to like it. Something Weird Video offers many Tull titles and each one has its own ridiculous charm. I love the line in the film where he is talking to his girlfriend on the bed and says something like, "Now, for those split beaver pants"! (His girlfriend was dressed for a 1950s costume party...) Lines like this make A Scream in the Streets and John Tull a "gem" of 70s sleaze cinema.

It's not only Tull that captivates me, but how about that scene where the robber holds up the convenience store? I love the look of "horror" on the owner's face. (Actually, it looks like the guy has no idea what is going on...) I also love when the robber jumps out of the glass door in slow motion. Hey, they don't make movies like this anymore! A movie so horrible that I can't help but love it! The cross dressing killer somehow goes unnoticed (though it is so obvious that "she" is a man), the dialog is amusingly horrid, John Tull bares "Tull junior", and don't forget the flaccid member during one of the sex scenes in the massage parlor! God, I wish I lived in the 70s to experience this stuff first hand!

OK, this was a bit of a disappointment. I purchased the German version of this movie from eBay which appears to be an ancient rental copy. The cover is really nice, it pictures a man with an axe dismembering a screaming woman. The German title literally is The Slaughterer and has the following catch lines on the cover: Chopped alive, he hates all women, his only love is his axe.

Unfortunately, the movie is quite different than what the advertising on the VHS cover suggests. Its 80 minutes long (PAL version) and not even ten minutes are devoted to the killer and his work. The lion share of celluloid is used for a number of rather steamy sex scenes, you get to see some genital parts indeed. The rest is second unit shots of the two cops driving their car doing their job.

The only thing that makes the movie worth watching 8and that is only the first 40 minutes of it) is a long scene in a brothel where an old pervert is doing his thing on a masseuse. The dialog is really fun.

The two or three scenes with the killer an his victims are mediocre at best. You don't get to see any stabbing, just the results.

This movie is real turkey and can only be beared when intoxicated. This film should NOT be viewed by minors.

A cross-dressing serial killer/rapist in drag beats a woman to death before the opening credits start rolling, and that's pretty much the entire movie. From there we see two cops start going about their rounds to find the killer, which never amounts to anything except that this thing turns into a porno flick with endless sex scenes and a peeping tom who always happens to find the right window at the right time so he can watch. I like gratuitous sex as much as the next guy, but there is a limit in a straight "feature", and certainly not when it's unimaginatively presented and whatever existing plot line was initiated completely becomes ignored. This is a very bad movie. 0 out of ****

This jaw-droppingly odd and obscure softcore crime film was on a double-feature cassette with "Axe" and that's how I saw it. It starts off with the most jarring set of opening credits ever. Basically, a booming male voice shouts over a black screen "A Scream in the Streets!" then it abruptly cuts to the Fastest Scrolling Titles Ever superimposed over footage of an unconvincing drag queen killing someone (1970's police show music raging in the background). The film settles down a bit after this into something resembling a story, although I can't remember what it is. My only memory is that it involved a massage parlor and lots of sex scenes (one, at least, verging on hardcore). The men were the ugliest beasts I've ever seen with their clothes off. They couldn't have found more hideous men for this film. Towards the end, the ludicrous drag queen from the opening credits shows up again and implausibly stalks a park while going completely unnoticed. Then something happens and the film ends.... For fans of runny color and grainy cinematography only.

There is a cross-dressing rapist/murder on the loose and two plain clothed cops are on the case, but they are too busy battling peeping tom, foodmart robber, and having personal problems in this run-of-the-mill action film. One actress looks like Colleen Brennen. The video print is the edited down version, but still has most of the stuff intact. Could've been a good cop film, but the paper thin script made it impossible to like. Suprisingly has a decent car chase for a low-budget film. Not recommended.