I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses

This film deserves more than 3.8 stars, the story is very realistic (inspired from a real fact) and interesting, the quality of acting is very high, good direction. With the exception of Elke Sommer, known from "Deadly Than the Male", "Shot in the Dark", "Among Vultures", "Ten Little Indians", all the other actors are not big names, but everyone is very convincing.

I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses is yet another obscure 70's movie that has attained cult film status purely on the basis of its presence on the infamous British video nasty list. Without this notoriety films such as this one would be more or less forgotten. It does have to be reiterated once again though that this movie, similar to many others on the video nasty list, is really not very shocking at all. It's in essence a courtroom drama that uses flashbacks to tell its story. And it's seemingly based on a notorious true Canadian crime. In it, a woman is murdered and her millionaire husband is accused. The narrative then looks back and considers the roles of several people.

The only familiar face for me was the German actress Elke Sommer who starred in a couple of Mario Bava films earlier in the 70's. She is good enough as the femme fatale murder victim. In fact, the opening of the movie is certainly unusual, with the name actress being brutally murdered right away. It's intriguing for sure but ultimately the film as a whole is not especially well done. It really feels like a TV movie most of the time, which is why the occasional nasty moments are so jarring, such as the murder and especially a scene of necrophilia, the latter of which must surely have cemented the film's 'nasty' status. Also of note is a soundtrack by Howard Shore. It sounds really familiar to a lot of the work he did for David Cronenberg and it does have a decent icy ambiance at times.

It's obvious that this film does not have a very good reputation. And perhaps that's not surprising. It's not violent enough for those seeking a video nasty and it's too salacious for anyone seeking out a courtroom drama. It doesn't seem to be aimed at a very wide demographic at all. But, you know what? I've seen a lot worse than this. Its mystery may not have been exactly the best but it did keep me interested nevertheless. And, you know how I said earlier that it began a little strangely; well wait until you see how it ends. It's hardly a typical ending that's for sure.

I discovered 2 years ago he is my great uncle and this movie was made about their story. He is currently serving 5 life sentences in Bath Ontario and is still alive although very bad health from what I have read. Very interesting family story that stem outside of him but certainly this is an out of the ordinary tale that unfortunately affected many. I have not found the connection of his daughter who I suppose is my cousin (from Ishtvan Demeter ((Steven) if she's reading) . Immigrants of Hungary was common to Toronto in the late 70's given the civil war. My gramma opened a small restaurant when she got here and called it little Budapest! Although Peter is a sociopath, I love understanding that history, especially for the mental health aspect.

I MISS YOU, HUGS AND KISSES stars Elke Sommer as fashion model Magdalene Kruschen who is brutally bludgeoned to death in the movie's opening seconds. This may send gorehounds into ecstasy, believing they've hit the jackpot.

Hold your horses!

While the beginning is jarring, it quickly settles into a courtroom drama with Magdalene's husband on trial for her murder. The rest is a series of flashbacks, piecing together what happened to the victim.

This is supposed to be a mystery / thriller, but it's hamstrung by the dull courtroom scenes and a lackadaisical story line. It all feels as though it was put together by accident. Perhaps this is due to it's being based on "true events". However, it just comes off as piecemeal and disjointed.

Within this drab tale are the infamous "dead chickens" and "necrophilia in the park" sequences that jump out unexpectedly, like a crazed jack-in-the-box!

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Ms. Sommer, but this is a dismal abomination!...

Having now seen seventy three of the seventy four films that were banned as 'Video Nasties' in 1984, I think I'm in a pretty good position to state that the DPP and whoever else was involved in making the list didn't really know what they were doing as many of the films on the list really didn't deserve to be there; and this one is one of the best examples of this fact. The film gets off to a decent start, as we see a woman (played by Elke Sommer) battered to death in a garage. It's not all that gory, but it's an intriguing start that lead me to believe the rest of the film might be at least half decent. It's not, however, as most of the rest of the film is made up of court scenes and flashbacks, and the worst part of is that it's not even interesting. The film was apparently loosely based on a murder case that I'm not familiar with. This is actually quite annoying as film versions of real life events are meant to dramatise them, and I find it hard to believe that the real life murder case wasn't more interesting than this film! Overall, I have no idea why this film was banned, but clearly it's obscure for a reason and if you aren't watching it for the same reason as me, then you really shouldn't be watching! My advice is simply to avoid it...