A men's magazine with beautiful women nude... a deranged killer who fights in the name of modesty. What happens when he gets their names and traces their private numbers? As you can imagine, bloody mayhem. And this is all before the hippies and rapists show up...
"Centerfold Girls" (known some places as "Girl Hunter") is a strange film... not visually strange, not strange in its telling... but strange in that the plot shifts in ways you will not expect it to at first. We seemingly follow Jackie, a nurse and former model, as she befriends Linda and stays lodged out of town... confronted by wild, rapist hippies (including one who wears a Coors box for a hat). But despite all this, Jackie is not the main character... we don't see much of her after the first half hour.
This film has a style that is hard to dislike. The murders are simple but effective, with the killer being a truly likable character with horn-rimmed glasses and saddleback shoes. (Don't worry, I'm not giving away anything -- he stands in the open throughout the film.) And the cast and crew is largely unknown, at least today. You may have heard of Aldo Ray or Ray Danton, but I doubt this. The director (John Peyser, mostly known for television work) and writers (Bob Peete and Arthur Marks) are obviously talented, but not household names in the world of horror.
Even the "star" (if one can call him that), is largely a television actor with bit parts. Andrew Prine, who plays killer Clement Dunne, is the glue that holds this entire movie together. Yet, as much as I loved him, I'm hard-pressed to name another movie he's in. Okay, that's not entirely true. The mid-70s saw him not only in "Centerfold Girls", but also in the now classic "Town That Dreaded Sundown" and "Crypt of the Living Dead" (directed by Ray Danton, and available in certain public domain horror collections).
My one concern, and this has been raised by other reviewers, is the lack of background on Clement Dunne. What does he do for a living? What made him want to kill women, and why did he pick the particular magazine he did? How does he track down the addresses and phone numbers for his victims? This lack of information did not take away from the picture, but makes me wonder. A sequel would probably have worked well, but it's a bit late now.
The box calls this a movie from the "sleazy" 1970s, an "exploitation" film in the "grindhouse" tradition. Now, I don't know if this is grindhouse, but they are dead-on with the exploitation and sleaze comments. Nudity abounds in this film, and if more than five minutes go by without someone getting topless (often for no reason), I'd be surprised. And then the (attempted and successful) rapes... not just one, but more like three. In one movie!
Dark Sky Films offers a nice, crisp picture and sound on this disc, while still capturing the gritty quality of the original film. While the special features are somewhat lacking (an audio commentary would be nice), the 15-minute featurette "Making the Cut" offers a great look back and really puts the picture in perspective. That, and a "musical cues" feature, which makes sense to me since the music was very unique and apparent throughout the picture (next to Prine, the music of Mark Wolin is my favorite thing about this film -- and this was his only work). I would encourage anyone to give this title a fair chance.
