By Richard Winters
My Rating: 1 out of 10
4-Word Review: He only likes virgins.
Albert (Zooey Hall) hates his rich mother (Joanne Moore Jordan) and at one point attempted to kill her, which got him institutionalized, but he manages to escape and is now back on the streets attempting to kill her once again. When he arrives at his old residence he meets Alice (Marlene Tracy) who’s now working as his mother’s maid. He promptly kills her, but then Alice’s 11-year-old daughter Annie (Geri Reischl) arrives asking for her. Albert is immediately taken in with the child’s innocence and purity and becomes determined to ‘save her’ from the jaded world around them. He concocts a story that her mother suddenly got sick and had to go to the hospital, so the two spend the day frolicking around at a park and later take part in a mock wedding, but by nightfall Albert’s dark urges return and this time his target is Annie.
This is yet another example of an underground 70’s exploitation flick that promises to deliver shocks via its provocative storyline, but ultimately has hardly any. The pacing is poor and filled with talky scenes that get extended far longer than they should. The dialogue lacks bite and there needed to be more action. For instance Albert’s attacking his mother should’ve been shown possibly as a flashback and not just talked about in passing. Albert’s overpowering of a hospital attendant (James Tartan) in order to escape from the institution doesn’t get shown either we just see the guard’s dead body after the carnage is over while in-between we get treated to a long extended conversation between Albert’s mother and his psychiatrist (Frank Whiteman), which is both boring and pointless.
Hall is poor in the lead and unable to convey more than one facial expression or voice tone. I didn’t like the way Reischl’s character gets written either as she’s portrayed as being too innocent and naïve. Sure kids will be more sheltered to real-world horrors than adults, but they’re not stupid and have a fear instinct like anyone else. When a creepy guy unexpectedly answers the door the warning flags would be going off for any typical 11-year-old, which was the age she was when this was filmed, and her character should’ve, and most likely would’ve been in reality, far more defensive and cautious.
I was also confused why Reischl, who is better known as being the ‘fake Jan’ who replaced Eve Plumb in the short-lived ‘The Brady Bunch Variety Hour’, got listed in the credits under the title of being ‘introduced’ like she was brand new to the film scene when she really wasn’t as she had already appeared in another horror flick The Brotherhood of Satan, which had been filmed in 1969 and released to theaters a full year before this one.
When I first watched this movie back in the summer of 1987 it had what I considered at the time one of the dumbest segments I had ever seen. It features Albert walking into a pool hall eyeing an attractive woman (Rosella Olsen) and telling her how rich he is, which is enough to get her to dump the boyfriend (Robert Christopher) she is out on a date with and immediately jump into Albert’s arms, which to me was just to heavy-handed to believe. (If picking up women could only be this easy.)However, after seeing it a second time I now consider this as attempted satire, but the segment should’ve had a better payoff. Instead of the jilted boyfriend later crying over her dead body, after Albert had killed her, he should’ve laughed and considered it ‘sweet revenge’ for her having publicly dumped him in humiliating fashion earlier.
The film has come under attack by some for its perceived pedophilia storyline. Critic John Kenneth Muir in his review stated that watching it made him ‘feel dirty’ and the pedophilia theme ‘went too far’ for a film that had ‘no aspirations to be anything but entertainment’. Personally I found this take to be virtue signaling and disagree with it on several points.
First I don’t think this was ever meant to be ‘entertainment’. Instead it was intended like a lot of other underground flicks at that time to shock and appall and then bank on the morbid curiosity of people to fill the theater seats simply to see ‘what all the fuss is about’.
Most importantly I don’t think Albert initially saw Alice as a sexual conquest, but more as someone he wanted to protect from the awful world around them. He wanted to save her innocence instead of taking it away. Yes, it’s true there is a scene when she is sleeping in a hotel room and he starts to have impulses to deflower her, but he fights them off and then goes out to a bar where he attacks another woman who is well over 18. The perceived pedophilia theme lasts for only a couple of minutes and really doesn’t take up the bulk of the runtime like some critics seem to think it does, or want you to believe.
My Rating: 1 out of 10
Alternate Title: Poor Albert & Little Annie
Released: April 1, 1972
Runtime: 1 Hour 25 Minutes
Rated R
Director: Paul Leder
Studio: Valiant International Pictures
Available: DVD
Scopophilia 