Point of Terror

Tony Trelos is a slick crooner at a nightclub called the Lobster House. Screaming and waking up from a nightmare (of his own terrible, terrible nightclub act) on a secluded beach he meets evil- looking and decadent Andrea (Dyanne Thorne) who's wearing a tasteless bikini. They get involved, as she's the wife of the crippled and bitter head of National Records. After one night of love- making in the pool she kills her defenceless wheel chaired husband. When the beautiful Helayne (daughter of the crippled homicide- victim) arrives, Tony falls in love with her, and he's torn between the two women. Things get outta hand and Tony throws a foul- mouthed Andrea off a cliff when she puts pressure on him for witnessing the murder and refusing his upcoming record contract. Things get even worse when Tony is suddenly shot dead by his waitress ex- girlfriend Sally, who's pregnant with his child. And then the magic starts... Tony screams and wakes up at the beach (it was all a bad dream), Andrea comes up to him, and highlights from the movie follows, only to be topped by Tony waking up and screaming once more!!! THE END. Very original.

This is not a good film. The Lobster House is decorated with tinfoil, Tony Trelos looks like a disturbing mixture of Tony Curtis and musician Herb Albert, and a lot of screen time is used showing him with his shirt off. Note that Carpenter who plays this ambitious Vegas sleazebag is also writer and producer. Scenes of Helayne and Tony horseback- riding is pure (and poor) excess, and Tony's crazy/ridiculous songs are downright awful. Pointless scenes of flashbacks to Tony's unhappy and clichéd childhood are seemingly endless. The ending with it all being a bad dream, and then a bad dream within a bad dream is not clever, just stupid. Some sequences appear experimental. I guess this isn't intentional, but proves a laughable lack of basic filmmaking skills. A clumsy and boring movie. Avoid. Avoid.

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!!!

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.

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.

The previous reviewer (weho90069) summed up the this film quite succinctly, but did he stress the title's musical contribution enough? Only by seeing it would you be able to know just how eye-rolling a production number can actually be. A horrendous musical intro kicks off the film as the opening credits roll, with the lead character Tony Trelos aping about on stage in a blazing, red suede suit with waterfall fringe. The 'live' performances go from bad to worse, as we soon see the actor singing to the rafters in his regular venue, The Lobster House (that is, after a quick shag before curtain). It is in this setting we see Andrea shopping him with her eyes, adding him up as he performs seemingly only for her. Andrea's cool, calculating gaze tells us that it's more than stage talent she's wanting to sign.

Lyrically speaking, the theme song "Lifebeats" (which is repeated throughout) is the narrative that clues us in on the inner world of Sir Trelos. It is this song that he cuts for his first record that proves to be too much for his new rep Andrea, as she abruptly halts the recording session with a dash of her hand, barking out a "FROM the TOP!" It was either ending too soon for her, or else she just couldn't sign off on the vocal at that point. Either way, it gives us another chance to hear it some more. The singer does have his moments vocally-speaking, but we all do when we play American Idol Home Edition. The draw for Trelos' fans is obviously not in his throat.

I recommend you watch POT, but better still, really listen--

"Lifebeats turning into Lovebeats... Lovebeats turning into Lifebeats, moving in and taking over me...".

Wow, man.