William Grefe, the man who made Sting of Death, the greatest Jellyfish Man movie of all time, directed William Shatner in a horror movie? How am I just now learning about this? As fun as a lot of Grefe’s down and dirty filmography is, this one just rocketed up to the number one spot as my favorite.
The opening is legitimately off-putting and creepy. A young boy catches his promiscuous mother making whoopee with a randy soldier (played by none other than William Kerwin from Blood Feast). When he grabs the kid and tries to force him on his own mother, the boy grabs a samurai sword (!) and runs it into the john’s abdomen.
That boy grows up to become William Shatner! He is a modern-day Bluebeard who marries and kills for money. When his latest girlfriend catches him with another woman, Shatner snaps and strangles her. He then sets out to put the moves on his latest victim. Her precocious daughter immediately knows he’s a loon and naturally, no one believes her.
Shatner overacts to the hilt. If you thought he was hammy on Star Trek, wait till you see him here. He’s an out and out suckling pig in this one. My favorite scene comes when he picks the daughter up hitchhiking and runs over a dog with her in the car. The way he hysterically reassures her, “It’s okay, they lick their wounds” is downright amazing. Seeing him regressing to a childlike state and blubbering, psychotically is a real treat too.
Parts of Impulse are kind of slow and/or resemble a Made for TV movie, but it has a real nasty streak at times and a handful of memorable set pieces. (It would make a great double feature with Scream for Help.) There’s a great murder sequence set inside a car wash, an amusing scene in a funeral home, and the ending is a lot of fun too.
It may not be perfect, but where else are you going to see Captain Kirk being intimidated by Odd Job from Goldfinger?
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