Aroused

Another NYC sexploitation film, and one of the good ones. Competently directed by Anton Holden and even pretty well acted, with a dark and grungy noirish feel. Ever since witnessing his abusive mom bedding down with her many lovers as a tormented youth, a sexually fearful young man is now compelled to murder all those dirty and trashy "whores" he encounters in Manhattan. But the lesbian/hooker lover of this psychotic's latest victim vows to find and castrate him, with the aid of her street-walking friends. It seems that this could have been a precursor to William Lustig's MANIAC; the disturbed killer not only has deranged flashbacks, but also lives in a run-down, mannequin-infested city apartment. *** out of ****

The "title" of this user comment is obviously a reference/tribute towards the tagline of the legendary infamous early 80's exploitation classic "Maniac". Like another reviewer already righteously pointed out, this slick and surprisingly grim mid-60's grindhouse feature could be considered as a predecessor and definitely a source of inspiration for William Lustig's later film. Both movies revolve on a perverted New York serial killer, whose identity isn't exactly kept secret, who sadistically butchers women because all of them are whores. Moreover, both killers still hear their mommy's voice and both have an impressive yet uncanny collection of mannequin dolls in their living room. Last but not least "Maniac" is mostly famous for its disturbing atmosphere of nihilistic brutality and the extreme gore, and even though "Aroused" naturally isn't that engrossing, it's definitely ahead of its time in terms of sexual and violent explicitly.

Weird choice of title, actually, since "Aroused" basically centers on a freak with an aversion from sexual pleasure since he spent most of his childhood locked up in a closet whilst mommy received her sex customers. Thus he developed hatred towards prostitutes and prowls the streets at night looking for new preys. The movie opens with a powerful sequence, clearly inspired by Hitchcock's "Psycho", in which the maniac strangles a defenseless girl in the shower whilst experiences flashbacks of his dominant mother. A reckless rookie cop and the frank lesbian lover of a murdered prostitute combine forces to catch the killer, and particularly the woman plots a barbaric vengeance. "Aroused" is a pretty good movie for its kind. The script horribly drags in places and the jazzy soundtrack is extremely annoying, but those are typical and forgivable defaults in cheap & sleazy 60's sexploitation movies. At least the overlong and tedious parts always end with exciting moments, like when follow around a black prostitute for what seems to be hours only to witness her getting slaughtered nastily in the end. There's even suspense in certain parts and the dialogs as well as the performances are astoundingly above average. Heck, even the girls that go nude are all pretty attractive and that's a lot more than I anticipated. It's truly a shame Anton Holden didn't direct more of this type of raunchy horror/exploitation flicks (apparently he's more at home in the sound editing business), since most of them are worth bothering for.

Aroused is a moody hooker-killer drama and a good example of 60s sexploitation flicks. Short, violent, and loaded with discordant jazz, this is only for fans of the genre. Some of the girls are fairly pretty, and the acting is generally adequate, but if it were made in 2004, it would be rated R and star A-list actors. It's a deeper psychological look at the killer than your typical Showtime skin flick, but that hardly makes up for all that bad jazz; but it does feature a nice Psycho ripoff that gives its audience what Hitchcock couldn't.

So where did noir go after 1959? There was a definite decline in Crime Genre films (of which Film Noir was, in great part a sub-genre though it did infiltrate other Genres also) if you check the year by year Genre lists, so that explains at lot, along with Hollywood closing down "B" productions. A good portion of it migrated over to TV, but there it was still sanitized by the Television Code and its "Seal of Good Practice" which functions much like the Hayes Code. Interestingly though, there were some independent productions that combined Film Noir with looser restraints in the industry that brought along the sexploitation films.

"FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY… THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NO WHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!" The Last Drive In

Aroused (1966) is one of those directions, and it's a real gem. Directed by Anton Holden written by Holden and Ray Jenkins and Robert Shull and stars nobodies, Janine Lenon, Steve Hollister, Joanna Mills, Fleurette Carter, Ted Gelanza, and Tony Palladino. Janine Lenon is great as hardboiled Hooker/Femme Fatale, Ginny Neff. It takes two homicide detectives to wrestle a switchblade out of her hand while she does her best to stomp their feet with her stilettos, before she realizes they are cops and not killers. She swears to a cop that she will castrate whoever killed her lover Pat. Watch for her touching monologue about her lesbian relationship with Pat , it's very well done and a nice contrast to her hard as nails hooker persona.

The story is simple, a peeping tom psycho with a mother-who-was-a- prostitute fetish follows hookers around, kills them and then violates them. Detective Johnny of NYPD is assigned to the low publicity case (who cares about hookers) The latest dead prostitutes bi/hooker girlfriend teams up with well meaning but screw-up Detective Johnny to track down the psycho.

This is the second Neo Noir in the vein of "Noir meets sexploitation flick" that I've seen (there are probably more out there to be discovered and resurrected) the first being Satan In High Heels (1962), but the sex isn't anything you don't see nowadays and the film is artistically done with beautiful chiaroscuro Noir stylistics, a shout out to Gideon Zumbach director of photography (as Anibal Paz, I wonder if Argentinian cinematographer Aníbal González Paz was visiting NYC in 1965-66). This film is exponentially better, it's highly stylized, with a wonderfully Noir aesthetic. It's on the cheap but has good direction and a descent plot both furnished by Director Anton Holden.

The way the street shots are shot suggests that possibly it was shot guerrilla style with no permits but they look great and bring back memories of that time period. I noticed a street location from The Incident (1967) that I just recently watched which used the Bronx Biograph Studios so some of it may be shot also in that borough. I'll give it a 8/10 for accomplishing so much with so little has a jazzy score to boot. It could be on a triple bill with Blast Of Silence and The Incident ;-)

Available on DVD from Something Weird Video.

Another NYC-made sex film with an ugly psychological underside. A prostitute and a police detective team up to catch the sicko who offed the hooker's lesbian lover. While the detective trails another hooker who offers to work as bait for the killer, the first hooker covertly checks out the apartment of the bartender who works in the bar all the working girls operate out of and finds lots of mannequins in fetish-like poses. Seems the bartender was raised by an abusive hooker mother, and his murders are his way of getting even with all the ladies of the night. But the ladies have hatched a little revenge plot of their own....

An intriguing mix of nudity, crime drama, and psychodrama, with a degree of character development uncommon to such films. Worth a look.