Konterr Brilliant and touching

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

randy4866 This is, quite likely, the worst movie ever made. The acting and dialog are right out of a Middle School play. If this could be considered art, then a chimp pooping on a canvas should be hanging in the MOMA. This is the sort of tripe about which pretentious, hipster snobs in the 60s would have had profound coffee table discussions. The most over-hyped piece of crap I've ever sat through. This makes some of the scare movies from the 1950s look like Ingmar Bergman, but this is just a low-budget piece of trash, probably knocked out in a slow afternoon on some director's ranch. Made during a period when just about anything qualified as an 'art' flick.

zardoz-13 By anybody's standards, Arch Hall, Jr., was no titan among thespians. Nevertheless, he made at least one nerve-racking thriller where he displayed surprising acting chops. As the eponymous character in "The Sadist," Arch makes life thoroughly miserable Hell for a trio of teachers. The set-up for "Stakeout" writer & director James Landis's suspenseful saga is both classic but formulaic. When the fuel pump in their car goes bad in the middle of nowhere, three public school teachers pull into an auto-parts salvage yard just off the highway. It seems that this unlikely trio was driving to a Dodgers baseball game in Los Angeles. One woman is riding with two men, and she cannot understand the complicated rules of the game. She cannot fathom the weirdness of baseball, especially the necessity of having to touch the bases during a home run. One of the teachers knows his way around engines because he repaired tanks in the army. Anyway, no more than 12 minutes later, the villainous Arch Hall with his fluffy coiffure appears with his girl friend and an automatic pistol. The remaining 79 minutes gradually gets under your skin because Arch makes you believe that he is bad, as in lethal. The action plays out as close to real time as possible. Aside from the opening scenes, "The Sadist" takes place in one setting during noon.After he wanders up with his girlfriend Judy at an auto salvage yard, Charles A. 'Charlie' Tibbs (Arch Hall Jr. of "The Choppers") takes school teachers Ed Stiles (Richard Arlen of "The Pit"), Carl Oliver (Don Russell of "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?") and Doris Page (one-time actress Helen Hovey) hostage. Charlie smacks around Carl with his pistol. Later, he harasses defenseless Doris for putting on airs. Carl is a 50-year old school teacher with a mustache and horn-rimmed spectacles. In other words, he is harmless. Ed is the mechanic of the three who tries to change out the fuel pump. Naturally, Charlie picks on the older teacher. The heartless killer forces him to get down on his knees and talk until he finishes drinking his soda. Eighteen year old Judy Bradshaw (Marilyn Manning of "Eegah") is just as heartless as her bloodthirsty boyfriend. "School's out, teacher," Charlie says and blasts Carl at point blank in the same composition. Charlie and Judy retire to gargle more soda pop while Ed explains the problem to Doris. As it turns out, Charlie and Judy is a murderous couple who have killed two other innocent bystanders before they got to the salvage yard. Arch is pretty intense when he challenges Ed to disarm him. You see, Ed has been trying to figure out how many bullets Charlie has fired.Landis generates suspense when two thirsty California Highway Patrol motorcycle cops roll onto the premises. They just want a Coke because the heat is so brutal. Charlie has stashed Ed in the trunk of a car when he makes small talk with the police. Judy has a knife pulled on Doris, and they lay hidden out of sight behind a car. When Doris cries out during a struggle over the knife, Charlie shoots the two cops without so much as a second thought. Afterward, Judy scavenges their corpses and then snatches up a cat and fondles it. Charlie gives Ed eleven minutes to repair the car. Charlie doesn't trust Ed worth a damn. Ed orders Doris to climb behind the wheel while Charlie covers Ed with his Colt auto-pistol. The way that cars worked back in 1963, Ed has to prime the carburetor with gasoline to get the engine started. As he brings the gas pump nozzle under the hood, he surprises Charlie and squints enough into his eyes to blind him temporarily. This is when our villain mistakenly kills his girl. Ed scrambles off to hide in the salvage yard and appropriates a tire-iron. A tense game of cat and mouse occupies the last ten minutes as Charlie and Ed search for each other. Mirrors are used with considerable finesse during this scene. Principally, Ed tries to make Charlie empty his pistol. Charlie surprises Ed and shoots him several times with a revolver stuck in his waistband. Doris flees on foot and Charlie takes Ed's car to pursue her. He gets the car stuck in sand and follows Doris on foot with a knife. He chases her around the woods and falls into a well teaming with rattlesnakes. Basically, this resembles a scene from "True Grit." Indeed, Charlie is given a fitting death scene at the fangs of the poisonous reptiles. The ultimate irony is the radio broadcast of the Dodgers game throughout the action.Landis wrings genuine suspense from this modest but compelling stand-off of a saga. A definite plus is future Oscar-winner Vilmos Zsigmond's evocative cinematography. The scene where crazed Charlie guns down his gal by accident because gasoline blurs his vision is nothing short of fantastic. "The Sadist" qualifies as a believable portrait of two vicious murderers before anything like "Badlands." Mind you, Arch didn't deserve an Oscar, but he strives to act like somebody that he clearly could never have been in real life: a homicidal maniac. Primarily, he hams it up, but he creates a despicable psychopath.

dougdoepke No need to recap the one-note plot.Okay, seeing Arch Hall Jr.'s name, I was expecting the worst. But, in my book, the movie turned out to be a sleeper. Sure, it's not for everybody's taste, as unrelentingly brutal as it is. Then too, sadist Tibbs (Hall) and nitwit girlfriend Judy (Manning) may make you doubt the course of evolution. It's a one-note, unsubtle plot, filmed in a junkyard somewhere north of LA. So it must have cost somewhere around 50-bucks to make. Nonetheless, director Landis gets the most out of the cheap production, keeping the suspense on high throughout, with at least one real shocker thrown in.At last, however, Hall found the role he was born to play. With his shape-shifting hair, pinched face and overhanging brow, he looks like nobody else in movies, thank the Lord. Besides, he only has about two lines of dialog, which helps a lot. The rest of the time he's mugging it up with a bunch of grotesque faces that may make you gag on your popcorn, but are just right for the looney character. Looks like tall blonde Helen Hovey (Doris) got her part by being first cousins with Hall, because she sure has trouble with her lines, even if she does run well in a tight skirt.Nonetheless, it's a smoothly done, tightly paced little thriller, despite the unpromising ingredients.

thor5894 Just caught this one on TCM, after reading some of the reviews here. I give it credit for being refreshingly grim and uncompromising for its time. It's well shot and directed, and the ending is almost poetic. That said, I must comment that the rave reviews here kind of ignore the elephant in the room, which is that Arch Hall jr. is quite possibly the worst thespian who ever thesp'd. Oh my is he bad. Picture an unfortunate hybrid of Michael J. Pollard and Clint Howard, minus Pollard's acting chops. The rest of the cast is competent, not outstanding but good enough.Anyway, now I've finally seen an Arch Hall jr. film. A couple years ago I saw Rules of the Game, my first Jean Renoir film. It's about 80 gazillion times better than this, if you're wondering.