Trash review: THE LOVE BUTCHER (1975)

I first saw THE LOVE BUTCHER at the V Movie Marathon in 2007, on a freaking gorgeous 35mm CinemaScope print. It played at around 4 or 5 AM, and instantly shot to the top few of my favourite grindhouse movies. It's only available on VHS (out of print) or DVD (bootlegs OF the VHS) in the evil Pan&Scan aspect ratio, but even with half the picture cut out, it's still a wonderfully bizarre slasher movie.

The movie opens at the scene of "another" bizarre murder of a woman involving gardening implements. Seems the town in which this is set has been experiencing a spate of such crimes lately, but the cops (led by the insatiably angry Edward Roehm) have no idea what's going on. So it's up to intrepid journalist Russell (Jeremiah Beecher) to solve the mystery behind the crime wave. And it's gonna be a challenge, because the killer could be "just like you - very ordinary".

Cut to the true star of the picture, Erik Stern, as the balding, crippled, myopic, possibly mentally-impaired gardener Caleb. For fans of hammy acting, this movie is a goldmine, because Mr. Stern really delivers as Caleb and - as we discover a little later - his alter ego Lester. Suave, sophisticated, and somewhat hirsute, Lester is "the great male Adonis of the universe" and exists solely to satisfy women - and then kill them, like so:

Most of the film deals primarily with three plotlines:

• Caleb being emasculated by women; Lester seducing them under a variety of accents and disguises; Lester killing them with a variety of gardening implements
• Russell, in his quest to solve the mystery, having troubles with his girlfriend
• The cops, illustrated below, truly failing to grasp the most basic of crime-solving techniques.

The three storylines eventually congeal in one of the most hand-on-forehead obvious reveals in cinema history, and naturally a lot of blood is shed in the process. But the story is really secondary to the awesomely over-the-top performance by Stern, the kitschy 70s decor on display everywhere, and the ludicrously misogynistic and just plain stupid script. Some examples of its snappy as hell dialogue:

• "I'm going to awaken you from this earthly nightmare...awaken you to the sweet repose of...death!"
• "Your feminine pulchritude is detestable, and you were trying to drain the energy from ME?!"
• "You're going to make love to me...satiate me...fill me with nymphoid satisfaction. Drain me...and then you'll lie at the foot of my altar and adore my godly beauty."

Truly, this film is a thing of beauty. Godly beauty, perhaps? I don't know. I dig it anyway.