Bella da morire

My review was written in March 1987 after watching the movie at a Times Square screening room.

"Prettykill", originally titled "Tomorrow's a Killer", is a tame exploitation film from Sandy Howard, revisiting once again the thematic territory of his 1982 pic "Vice Squad". Pic is notable mainly as the vehicle by which former Canadian-U. S. art film distributor Spectrafilm gets its feet wet with grindhouse product.

Three parallel stories intertwine unconvincingly in Sandra K. Bailey's far-fetched script: David Birney is a cop tortured with guilt for killing a guy in the line of duty, whose problems keep mounting as he gets in hot water with his superior, Yaphet Kotto; his girlfriend Season Hubley (star of "Vice Squad") is a $500-a-pop call girl fed up with her life but unwilling to wed Birney; and Suzanne Snyder is a pretty blonde dancer who Hubley takes under her wing to show her the ropes of prostitution.

A key subplot involves Hubley's mentor, an older prostie now working as a madam (Susannah York), who is having problems as her young daughters (raised in the same house where her group of prostitutes work) find out about her line of work and are ostracized at school. This material is played sentimentally and doesn't work.

The drug bust case Birney's working on curiously links up with an investigation of a serial killer of prostitutes, with Birney's conflict of interests leading him to protect York and foolishly punch out Kotto, spelling the end of the line for him as a New York City policeman. Hubley becomes fed up with hooking and decides to quit. Main plot element, however, is revelation (already given away by the film's attractive one-sheet of Snyder in lingerie holding a knife) that Snydr4 is a schizo, talking on her incestuous fathr's personality and killing hookers.

Main entertainment value of this plodding film comes in some of the campiest scenes since "Mommie Dearest" as Snyder changes voices an behavior back and forth between her lip-smacking, southern-fried dady and her own ever-smiling (replete with Raggedy Ann doll plaything) little girl personality. Pic climaxes with her made up and styled as a doppelganger for Hubley, taking on daddy's voice and trying to kill hne. Sudden happy ending is preposterous.

Birney is miscast as a film noir antihero while Hubley is far too cool (one almost starts sympathizing with her sleazy johns when she is so unfriendly to them) for the role. Both Kotto and YHork maintain their professional standards and Snyder is a hoot -her performance is ready-made for midnight screenings. Supporting cast is stuck with stereotypes.

Film is professionally lensed, but lowon action for a policier. One can infer from the end credits (which list gallery credits under "additional photography unit") that a sleazy sequence set in an art gallery, including the films only nude footage, was shot and added as an afterthought, typical of exploitation features. Though set in New York, the film was made primarily in Toronto.

"Prettykill" plays like an average episode of a TV series. The script lacks focus, the direction is lackluster, the characters unlikable. When a movie has to resort (yet again) to "Dirty Harry"-like brutality to get your blood going (actually, you just get angry at it), you know it's in serious trouble. (*)

This ranks as one of the worst movies ever made. This movie stretches its attempt at psychocriminality. Yaphet Kotto who always gives a solid performance did so here as Birney's boss, but I can't imagine he used this part to get his role on the TV series "Homicide." You have a young southern girl with multiple personalities(the one of her father is over the top)killing prostitutes,a southern farmer with a limp and a pick up truck and at least another dozen cliches that at times make the movie painful to watch. One of the more preposterous shots is having Birney drive his car up to a house with a lawn in front, a stream in back and the address would be at 72nd St. & Columbus. For people who know New York City this is comparable to going to the moon and seeing palm trees. Where Ms.45 was bad, but campy, Pretty Kill is just bad. This movie is best viewed in the old Times Square at the midnight showing of a dilapidated theater with it raining outside and a flask of scotch in your pocket.

Well here is one lame attempt at the 80's Slasher movie genre. Poor everything in this one. The main enjoyment I had was watching a stripper get naked for about 10 seconds? Just a stupid TV movie although it's R rated for some profanity and other stupid things. Don't even waste your time on this one unless you like your slasher movies with no blood, gore, storyline, etc. I have 2500 movies in my collection and this is going to be sold for sure, not worth the $3 I paid for it that's for sure. Slasher reviewer gives this one a thumbs down and if you happen to see a copy of this, grab it off the shelf and use it as toilet paper in the bathroom in the video store!!