Point of Terror

Point of Terror (1971)

BOMB (out of 4)

I need to admit that I have no idea what this film was about or what it was trying to say but here's the so-called plot. Tony (Peter Carpenter) is a nightclub singer at the Lobster Lounge where he's hoping to catch a break but most of the time he ends up in the beds of older women. Lately Tony has been having grisly nightmares of women being brutally murdered. Soon, one of these older woman (Dyanne Thorne of Ilsa fame) offers him a record contract. Tony, thinking he's going to get popular, starts acting like a star, which upsets the older woman.

Make any sense? I really don't know what the horror elements are doing in this film because it's mostly about Tony and his record contract. The horror elements are mainly shown through the nightmare images but trust me, hearing Tony sing is a lot scarier than anything we see violence wise. I kept watching this movie and expecting it to turn into a horror film but it remained a record contract film with a few doses of mystery, which were just downright boring and hard to follow as well.

The director at least knew to make the women get naked and yes boys, that includes Ilsa herself. Dyanne Thorne might not be the best actress around the block but she's got a lot of what the others don't have, if you get my drift. There's also another silly sex scene on a huge boulder (wouldn't that cause bad scratches to the back?) that the director shows using split screens. The film is bad enough to get a few laughs, especially the look at the bar, which seems to be decorated out of colored tin foil. Point of Terror fails on all other levels but I'd recommend you giving the soundtrack to someone you really hate.

Like its earlier companion feature "Blood Mania," 1971's "Point of Terror" was plainly a vanity piece for writer-producer-star Peter Carpenter, a Vegas hoofer whose death remained shrouded in mystery for decades, dates as varied as late 1970, late '71, even the late 70s-early 80s, finally confirmed as 1996, resulting from AIDS. As an actor, he displays neither emotion nor charisma, and appears to be miming his three songs, all non hits from (believe it or not) Motown! ("Lifebeats" was actually recorded by The Supremes, minus Diana Ross). Imagine a singer so bad he has nightmares on the beach about his singing, and his apartment looks like his decorator was 'Bela Lugosi!' Another surprising name prominently featured in the opening credits is future Oscar winning editor Verna Fields, who earned her Academy Award for her work on Spielberg's "Jaws" just a few years later. The director is Alex Nicol, who at least had a genuine horror title on his slim resume behind the camera, 1958's "The Screaming Skull" (he had far more credits as an actor). Leslie Simms fondly recalls her working with Peter Carpenter, who may have been a likable fellow off camera, but insisted on playing lowdown sleazeballs in his own films. He juggles three different women in this picture, even flirting with the attractive Miss Simms, yet insists on rushing off to get married even after one girl announces she's pregnant! Dyanne Thorne (whom I first saw in STAR TREK's "A Piece of the Action") had already appeared with Carpenter in 1970's "Love Me Like I Do," here playing the man hungry wife of wheelchair bound record mogul Joel Marston, best remembered by genre buffs for 1957's "The Disembodied," plus his film debut in the 1949 Charlie Chan finale "The Sky Dragon" ("Blood Mania" had featured Jacqueline Dalya, from 1941's "Charlie Chan in Rio"). For all the wildly misleading ads depicting this as a horror film, the only scene that qualifies is Dyanne's bloody murder of Marston's first wife, just a brief flashback. Considering all her misdeeds, her character just isn't as maniacal as she should be, as one reviewer commented, the whole thing remains curiously tame, rather than outrageously lurid (it's never boring however). "Point of Terror," being part of Crown International's television package, debuted on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater on Feb 26 1977, broadcast twice more over the next 4 years ("Blood Mania" earlier debuted on Nov 27 1976).

Get a group together to witness POINT OF TERROR which, as others will have noted, is not a horror movie (but *is* pretty horrible!). The film is, rather, a sexploitation melodrama about a ruthless, ladder-climbing lounge singer, Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) who gets involved both intimately and professionally with Andrea (Dyanne Thorne), the sex-starved, alcoholic wife of a wheelchair-bound music industry mogul. Everything about this film is a howler: script, acting, production values (tin-foil sets), and the music...the music...oh, those songs! On top of everything else we have a protagonist who likes to "drop trou" and show off his humpy bod (and there ain't nuthin' wrong with that!). Peter Carpenter must have an ego the size of Mount Rushmore to flash us a lingering butt-shot when he emerges from a shower as well as a fully nude side-angle shot where his leg just barely hides the family jewels from view. WOOF!!! Did he ever do a Playgirl spread? It certainly would have been up his alley... Tempestuous blonde bombshell co-star Dyanne Thorne is a force to be reckoned with (and how!) with a rack that won't quit, and her buoyant topless scene in a swimming pool is one of the film's highlights (along with her many excursions into overacting). Watch for scenes with Joel Marston as the wheelchair-bound husband who can't seem to sit still (although he's supposed to be utterly incapacitated from the waist down), and in one poolside scene catches himself just before crossing his legs! Leslie Simms in a supporting role as one of Andrea's lush friends is a scene stealer, while Paula Mitchell as Sally turns in a tragically robotic performance. It just keeps getting better and better...! The film's cinematography is often laughably blurry when "focusing" on Carpenter during his lounge act at The Lobster House (yes, The Lobster House, I kid you not), or else it's bizarrely "creative" (as happens during a moonlit, beach-side sex scene involving select points of view shown in split-screen). Oh, and the wardrobe...and hair!!! Look, if you're not a fan of "bad cinema", don't bother with this title since you won't even be able to appreciate the astonishing epic quality of this carefully crafted bomb. But if you're like me, and get sick chuckles out of films that tried really hard but totally missed the mark, then rent this one immediately or buy it (Rhino DVD released POINT OF TERROR as part of a multi-film set titled HORRIBLE HORRORS in October of 2004). This one gets a whopping 8 out of 10 just because its so terribly awful that it's engagingly entertaining in repeat viewings (and how cool is that!?!) -- how often does a "bad" film come along that still yields new stuff to ridicule on repeat viewings? POINT OF TERROR is a winner! And speaking of winners, what EVER happened to a talent like Peter Carpenter??? Enquiring Minds Want To Know!!!

Crown International Pictures + Peter Carpenter = match made in trash heaven!

The legendary Peter Carpenter started his film career starring in a Russ Meyer film, VIXEN. He then made three other films before disappearing from the face of the earth. And what films they were. BLOOD MANIA and this one, POINT OF TERROR (I haven't seen "LOVE ME LIKE I DO" but with such a great title, I'm dying to see it). Carpenter stars as a lounge singer who sounds/looks like Tom Jones. The story is totally inconsequential. It's about people scheming to murder other people who murdered other people, etc. Basically, people using people because of money and greed kinda of story.

With better production values than BLOOD MANIA, POINT OF TERROR sometimes looks/sounds like a Russ Meyer film, without the extreme excess that's usually found in Russ Meyer's films. But the rest is still there: sex, trash, hopelessly dated dialogue, violence, buxom babes, beefcake, greed, 1970s gaudiness, did I say trash? It's Russ Meyer-lite.

I love everything in POINT OF TERROR: the music (did Carpenter really sing those songs?), the fashion, the sudden sporadic bursts of violence, the focus on sex, sex, sex. The swingers dialogue: "Hey, Chickie". The acting. The tackiness of it all. Though not as memorably over-the-top as BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, POINT OF TERROR is, IMO, much more entertaining than the over-baked BTVOTD.

Favorite scenes: the opening credits, with Carpenter singing/dancing in a red fringe get-up. The beginning on the beach (Dyanne Thorne's bikini is definitely not sexy). The musical bits. The sex scenes (the triptych one is cool). The scene around the swimming pool when the husband confronts Thorne. Ole! The "surprise" ending. But nothing beats the scene with Leslie Simms, as Fran, in that purple hat. Fran is such a badass! Arf.

Michael J. Weldon, of Psychotronic Films fame, wrote in his books that he hates Peter Carpenter films, which surprises me because Peter Carpenter films are so perfectly Psychotronic: entertainingly bad. The main reason Weldon (and other fan boys) dislikes POT and BLOOD MANIA is probably because the focus is mainly on hunky Peter Carpenter (both films were produced by Carpenter himself...ah, narcissism). But for me, this obvious difference is what makes these trashy movies unique/one of a kind.

Long live Peter Carpenter.

Tony Trelos is a club singer at a seaside bar. Wanting more out of his career, he is approached by a woman on a beach who owns a record label with her crippled husband. Tony's involvement and exploits with her are more dangerous than he's aware of, however, as she's guilty of a murder, and capable of another.

The second piece of celluloid sleaze that Peter Carpenter wrote and starred in after the atmospheric (and underrated) "Blood Mania," "Point of Terror" is a significantly less thrilling picture—far more talky and significantly less moody. It also seems to be cribbing elements of "Blood Mania" in a lot of ways, as it follows borderline identical plot arcs that have been minutely tweaked: Man becomes involved with wealthy woman. Woman is unstable and a murderess. Family member enters the picture and complicates matters further. Same formula, different canvas.

The film is peppered with some of the most ridiculously "seventies" musical numbers you'll ever see, and also boasts a significant amount of skin from a buxom Dyanne Thorne and the hunky Carpenter. There is a nice doubled-over twist at the end of the film that is clever but rather cheap, and the general impression I got after it was over was that Carpenter seemed to have wanted to do-over "Blood Mania," but this time invoke as much of Jess Franco's "Succubus" as he could.

All in all, "Point of Terror" is a middling thriller that, while mildly amusing, is more or less a rehash of Carpenter's prior (and better) film. It is, like "Blood Mania," relatively well-shot, but it lacks the performances and moodiness that made the former so watchable. For a piece of grindhouse sleaze, "Point of Terror" is watchable, but it's lacking both in spirit and inventiveness. 5/10.