College
student Denise (Susan McCullough) returns home to the south to tell her family she
is leaving school to marry a black man. Denise’s
younger brother Vance (Micky Dolenz from The Monkees) is supportive, but her older
brother Dan (James Ralston) is a full-blown racist, so he smacks her around. The next day, Denise’s boyfriend is murdered
by a sniper, and she is later drowned in her bathtub by a black gloved killer,
who makes her death look like a suicide.
Meanwhile, a young black priest (Chuck Patterson) reaches out to the brothers
to offer his condolences. More people close
to the family wind up dead, and a pair of perplexed cops are left trying to
make sense of it all.
Directed
by Joy N. (Night of Bloody Terror) Houck, The Night of the Strangler is surprisingly
progressive and modern for a movie from 1972.
It has more on its mind than just being another whodunit, even if the
execution is a bit clunky at times. Houck
tries to juggle the various plotlines, which involve multiple killers and (too
many) supporting characters with inconsistent results. It’s not completely successful, but the murder
scenes have a moderate amount of kick to them (there’s a neat bit involving a
booby-trapped glove compartment), and the twist ending is effective.
Oh,
and nobody gets strangled, so there’s that.
Another
debit is that some of the dramatic scenes veer into heavily into camp. Ralston especially goes overboard as the
sniveling racist brother. Dolenz on the
other hand fares well in a rare dramatic role and makes a memorable impression
as the sensitive brother.
Dolenz
also gets the best line on his brother’s wedding day when he says, “Beauty and
the bigot!”
AKA: Dirty Dan’s Women. AKA:
Is the Father Black Enough?
AKA: The Ace of Spades.
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