The Sadist/Comments

While on their way to a baseball game, three school teachers find themselves stuck when their car breaks down. They try to seek help at an old junkyard, but find the place is deserted. They think they're alone, that is until they're confronted by a psychotic, wild eyed, giggling fiend played to the hilt by Arch Hall Jr (who patterned his character after Richard Widmark in the 1947 Film Noir Kiss of Death) and his crackpot girlfriend. The maniacal punk proceeds to taunt the trio as he holds them at gunpoint. The teachers soon find out that their crazy captors are wanted for murder (whoda thunkit?!) and proceed to try to find a way out of their deadly predicament. This movie was inspired by the true story of the 1950s Charles Starkweather murder spree (beating Badlands by 10 years). It was made on a very low budget in the early 60s, but six decades later it still holds up extremely well. A B & W B-movie thriller that will have you on the edge of the seat from start to finish. The cinematographer on the film was a young Vilmos Zsigmond who film geeks will surely know as the DP on such New Hollywood classics as McCabe & Mrs Miller, Deliverance, Scarecrow, The Deer Hunter, Close Encounters and Blow Out. The Sadist is my favorite Arch Hall Jr performance along with his polar opposite role as the innocent, goodhearted aspiring pop singer in Wild Guitar. --Pete