Sadist (1963)

Profile of Terror
Sweet Baby Charlie

Cast:

Arch "I won't sing like in Eegah!" Hall Jr. is Charles A. 'Charlie' Tibbs
Richard Alden is Ed Stiles
Marilyn Manning is Judy Bradshaw
Don Russell is Carl Oliver
Helen Hovey is Doris Page

What the box says:

If you want to truly be scared out of your socks, we strongly recommend the hellishly horrific low-budgeter Profile of Terror. Arch Hall Jr., heretofore the colorless star of such cheapies as Wild Guitar and Eegah!, is disturbingly convincing as a sadistic thrill killer. When three schoolteachers (Richard Alden, Marilyn Manning and Don Russell), en route to an LA Dodgers game, pull up at a deserted gas station, they are held captive by Hall and his wacko girlfriend Helen Hovey. Harboring a psychotic hatred of teachers, Hall gleefully torments his prisoners, killing Russell while the latter is on his knees, begging for his life. Every time we think that this film can't get anymore agonizing, the insanely giggling Hall pulls off yet another outrage. By the time Hall faces his well-deserved demise, you'll be hard pressed not to jump out of your chair and scream "Get him! GET HIM!!!" Stunningly photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond, Profile of Terror may well be the greatest exploitation flick ever made (and we're taking into consideration Night of the Living Dead). The film is better known by its original title, The Sadist.

Plot:

The eyes of Arch Hall Jr. assault as the narrator describes the SADIST.

3 teachers are heading to a ballgame when their car dies. They manage to pull into a gas station/junk yard. Unable to find the station owner, they start looking a for a fuel pump in one of the junked cars. Carl Oliver, the old teacher, keeps looking for the owners but just finds an abandoned dinner table.

Ed Stiles starts removing the fuel pump from a car. Doris just stands by, and Carl is thinking this is awfully strange.

When Arch Hall Jr. and his girlfriend, Judy, appear. Ed is to fix the car, and Arch will take it. Doris is automatically creeped out by Arch’s maniacal laughter. Carl is robbed but mentions how they’re all teachers. Big mistake, Arch and Judy don’t cotton to teachers. Pistol whips Carl because teachers made fun of Judy.

Arch takes Ed’s money while Doris tends to Carl. Doris whines about needing water for Carl. He finally lets her gets some water. While, they’re gone, Ed realizes the teen couple must be the couple behind 7 killings in the past week.

Doris gets the water. Arch doesn’t appreciate being called inhuman, etc by Doris. Arch threatens and even cops a feel.

After getting back, Arch takes a few pot shots at the teachers top scare them. Arch will kill Carl after he finishes a pop and has him plead for his life in the meanwhile. After the last swallow, Arch puts a cap in him better than Tommy Kirk did with Ole Yeller.

Ed holds Doris back. He gets back to working on the car. Doris accuses him of being a coward by not trying to save Carl. Finally, he gets the fuel pump out and has to put it in the other car.

Doris is starting to act delusional. Ed starts trying to calculate how many shots are left in Arch’s pistol. Arch pops up flashing the extra clips he has and even starts egging Ed to jump him. How many shots are left?

Hearing a motor approaching, Arch stuffs Ed in a car trunk and has Judy watch Doris. 2 motorcycle cops pull up and are greeted by Arch. Doris struggles with Judy and cries for help. Arch perforates the police.

He demands that Ed fix the car or else.

Judy takes the cops’ wallets and everything else she can find.

Ed and Doris thinking running may be their only chance until Ed gets a better idea to try and run over Arch with the car. When Arch gets in the car, Ed has to change his plan.

Arch and Judy play around and get out of the car. They watch Ed, and Dorothy starts the car. Our crazed psycho starts taunting Ed again. Forcing Doris out of the car, he is sure that Doris is up to something. Arch knows more about cars than he’s been letting on. Ed is to get some gas for the carburetor. Ed shoots some gas into Arch’s eyes. Judy shoots at Doris.

The blinded Arch shoots Judy and breaks down crying. Ed is chased by the truly angry deranged lunatic. Hide and seek among the junked cars ensues. Doris hides in a shed and stumbles across the owners bodies causing her to scream.

Arch shoots at Judy who runs off. Ed manages to get him to chase him again.

Reaching a dead end at the garage, Ed is trapped when Arch tries shooting. The gun is empty. Ed rushes at Arch who grabs another of the guns he’s carrying and shoots Ed. Arch shoots him half a dozen times to insure he’s good and dead.

Doris runs off down the valley. Arch hops in the car and drives after her, in the car that keeps stalling.

Grabbing his big pig sticker knife, Arch goes after Doris who reaches the burnt remnants of a house. More cat and mouse chase ensues. Arch falls into a well and is bitten by several rattlesnakes.

Doris runs off.

Arch tries to climb out of the well but falls down. Finally, his screams end.

Doris gets to the car and walks away.

What I say:

The 1950s saw the start of the rampaging teenagers in movies while they have been more about guys who didn't like going to sock-hops but used the word "daddio." The next decade may have started out with the same type but got more rebellious and raged against authority. I'm not even getting to the end of the 60s with hippies. Movies have always tried to take some degree of elements of real life and sewed stories around them. The Sadist is known for taking Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend on a spree of murders into something pseudo-fictional touched with reality. Now, how much of the Sadist is using Starkweather is hard to figure out without research. Reading wikipedia isn't enough detail for me to claim to have any true grasp of the Starkweather aspects of the movie.

First, you better quit thinking of Arch Hall Jr. from Eegah!. Yes, his father tried pushing him as a pop star and even as a teen movie star. Neither career was too successful. He may have the worst laugh I have ever heard. Frankly, other actors can be more intimidating, Arch plays like he's a few marbles shy of a handful which isn't a good thing with him packing a gun, plenty of ammo, and willingness to give lead transfusins to the rest of the world. However, he plays Charlie as sinister, cold, and chilling. Even the parts where he just acts smug, you can tell he isn't operating on all cylinders. It doesn't help with his girlfriend who barely talks rather than to giggle at the cruelty that gets inflicted on the teachers or to just whisper ideas to Arch like some sort of a psychotic muse.

Ed Stiles getting shot is surprisng to say the least. By this point, in this movie, you just figure he'll take care of Arch Hall and get away with Doris. Very few movies have the hero get whacked about ten minutes before the ending. It is hard to believe that with as gritty and grim this movie is for Arch to die by falling into a well and being bitten a number of rattlesnakes. That is a bit anti-climatic. Well, it had to make more sense than Doris turning into some precursor for Sarah Connor from the Terminator wielding a pump-action shotgun.

For such a low budget movie, the Sadist works far better than you would imagine. No shakey camera angles. No day for night shots. The typical low budget movie behind the scene problems do bother the Sadist. By that I mean the acting, the actress playing Doris is pretty horrendous. She alternates from completely whining to completely annoying in 2.46 seconds flat.

In the following years, plenty of movies have done crazed killer and girlfriend terrorizing a small group of people. Most of them can't hold a candle to this one. Plenty of the low budget thrillers that ripoff Desperate Hours or does the generic script for a group trapped by a psycho or gaggle of psychos. Natural Born Killers is the main overhyped movie in this subgenre. Thankfully, people are starting to realize that it is more rancid than a gallon of milk sitting out in car for a week in 110 degrees.

This is quite different from the typical horror movie from the early 1960s. Yes, it could be considered more as suspense or as the precursor to the many of the low-budget thrillers. Showing Carl Oliver getting shot in the head, the camera doesn't jump or flinch away. It is quite surprising to see that kind of thing in a 1963 movie. Gore didn't really start to become more prevalent until the late 60s.

Carl Oliver comes across like a nerdy version of Floyd the barber. His death warrant was alsmot signed automatically the way he keppt talking about going to see his son graduate from West Point. Parent wanting to attend a child's graduation is almost as fatal as the retiring cop.

Quotable Dialogue
"I have been hurt by others and I will hurt them. I will make them suffer as I have suffered".
"The words of a sadist, one of the most disruptive elements in human society. To have complete mastery over another, to make him a helpless object, to humiliate him, to enslave, to inflict moral insanity upon the innocent. That is his objective, and his twisted pleasure!"
"I can't stand snakes."
"Don't you have any deceny?"
"By all means, enjoy your lovemaking?"
"Goody good good don't like it."
"School's out, teacher!"
Morals of the Story
Arch Hall Jr. has some creepy eyes.
Slapping hysterical women restores calmness.
Coke-Cola is the preferred soft drink of serial killers.
Spree killes love to listen to "Turkey in the Straw."
Gas isn't a replacement for Visine.
Tire irons are giant throwing stars.