A recluse, played by Logan, strikes fear and suspicion in all his hick
Arkansas neighbors, simply because he is differenty, he stays away from society and has all the makings of a prime target of smalltown gossip. An
anthropologist, played by Kathleen Quinlan, comes to study him and research just why he
has dropped out of society, which no cinemagoer in his right mind would give a
rat's ass about. It does get better though.
Said recluse is accused of kidnapping and possibly murdering a boy. Evidence
is flimsy against him and we of course know he is innocent, but what of the
real kidnapper. I mean Bradford Dillman plays the culprit, and this is after
all the sicko from Compulsion as well as countless other weirdo pictures.
What is he gonna do to the kid, while the hero takes the wrap? Is he gonna
string him up, tear out his guts and cook them like Albert Fish might have
done? Is he gonna do a Texas Chainsaw Massacre on him?
Is he gonna molest the
poor kid in ways that would press for an X rating ?
Nope and here's where the irony comes in. Dillman is a demented psycho, but a
lovable one, sort of. He has kidnapped the boy simply to have a friend. One
cannot help but thinking of Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster here,
muttering "friend" to no one who wishes to take him up on the offer.
Dillman does no better, but at least the kid does not die like the little girl
with the flowers in Frankenstein. The kid is saved, the recluse is proven
innocent and Dillman gets caught. All things end right.
Once again, Dillman saves a dull and routine movie with his role as the
psychopath, one of his last in moviemaking before retirement. The idea of
making the character sympathetic rather than vile may well have been his
improvision alone, as he has been known to do in other films where scripts
remain horrible. Either way, he saves this movie and makes it watchable.
|