Five Desperate Women

This film begins with a violent man overpowering a security guard and then escaping from an insane asylum. Not long afterward, he comes upon a man who is relaxing on a beach and then proceeds to kill him for no apparent reason. The scene then shifts to five women meeting each other after several years apart. To that effect, they all board a small boat where they plan to spend some time together on a remote island with no outside visitors other than the captain of the boat "Jim Meeker" (Bradford Dillman) and the caretaker of the house "Michael Wylie" (Robert Conrad). Although there is a little bit of drama between some of the women at first, things appear to be going rather well--at least, until one of the women is found strangled to death in her bedroom, that is. So, faced with this horrifying dilemma--and not knowing which of the two men they can trust--the women now find that they must either stick together as a group or die one-by-one at the hands of a homicidal maniac. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a rather average murder-mystery which suffered to an extent from its made-for-television format. Admittedly, the film could have used a bit more suspense at times, but even so I thought it was good enough for the time spent and I have rated it accordingly. Average.