Synopsis
Paint it red for passion, red for rage, and red for his beautiful victims.
A rich, lonely woman hires a drifter as a live-in handyman. The drifter turns out to be a psycho artist who has beautiful women model for him.
Playgirl Killer
1968 Directed by Erick Santamaria
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Theatrical
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Canada
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Canada
26 Jul 1968
- Theatrical
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Made exclusively for viewers who can't imagine a hotter fantasy than getting a back rub from their favorite 1960s pop star... Neil Sedaka.
Sedaka's supporting role is probably most people's reason to check out the Canadian sexploitation thriller Playgirl Killer, unless you're like me and are ever so slightly obsessed with watching as many films as humanly possible starring Herschell Gordon Lewis's favorite fella, William Kerwin. Bill is the title predator here (makes sense given that he co-wrote the story with younger brother Harry Kerwin), playing a painter whose predilection for dispatching his models through various grisly methods - even by harpoon! - ultimately causes his own poetically macabre downfall. And as with Scum of the Earth, the presence of…
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Usually to be found in Florida filmed exploitation films, William Kerwin (Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, A Taste of Blood) hot footed it to Canada for Playgirl Killer, playing a crazy beatnik artist, haunted by visions of sea sirens, and driven to murder by his models' inability to keep still. The real surprise piece of casting here is singer Neil Sedaka, persuaded over to the great white north to sing in the movie and briefly play a playboy who all the playgirls are attempting to get an oily rub down from. It's a very mid 1960s movie, what with the artist's trippy visions, gyrating teenagers going wild at a pool party, musical interludes and a succession of oversexed, bikini clad babes…
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A stern warning to anyone considering taking up drinking wine and lusting after men with beards.
Quite watchable and engaging 1960s cheapie that doesn't fall into any of the easy and distasteful possibilities of its plot, but commits wholly to "man wishes to Art so much that Murder!" without adding implied necrophilia or sexual assault. It's a low bar but it clears it.
Very fun to watch characters already being visibly written against type-- almost as fun as antique glimpses of long-destroyed Montreal boardinghouses, with postcard moments in "ooh, Ste Adele!", and trying to figure out where on Mount Royal this mansionette is.
With the exception of the somewhat overlong party sequence (but then again, tastes in rock and or…
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Bill (William Kerwin) is a good looking man who has no problem meeting women but unfortunately for them, he is actually a bit psycho and loves to murder them.
Kerwin is best remembered for his roles in various Herschell Gordon Lewis pictures but he had a pretty long career, which included over a hundred credits. He also wrote the story here but sadly PLAYGIRL KILLER just doesn't get much done. It seems that the film was trying to be a psychological thriller or some sort of a profile of a serial killer but it just doesn't work.
A lot of the blame can go to director Erick Santamaria because there's never any suspense to be found in the film and…
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