I'd like to just take a second and thank all of you that read this blog on a regular basis, it's nice to know we're not the only krazy people in the world! Tonight's Saturday Night Special is dedicated to each and every one of you, and it's an obscure little Freddie Francis romp called "The Psychopath," or as it was released in Germany, "Der Puppen-Mörder."
"The Psychopath" starts off with this cat John (X:THE UNKNOWN, CURSE OF THE DEMON) Harvey as Reinhardt Klermer, getting pinned down by this red car in this dead end alley!
Inside of the violin case that he was carrying, was this weird doll that looked like either Reinhardt or a Presidential candidate, one of the two, you decide! VOODOO? Not quite!! More like just crazy!!
The string quartet is missing it's fourth tonight!
This is our next door neighbor's pad!
Patrick (CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED, THE SKULL) Wymark is the guy in charge of figuring the whole thing out, Inspector Holloway! Seeking clues he heads on over to the house of a known, but eccentric doll collector, a certain Mrs. Von Sturm, and this is what he finds!
"The Psychopath" is directed by Dungeon fave-a-roonie, the freakin' fantastic Freddie Francis! Using the keen eye he developed during his years as a Cinematographer, almost all of Freddie's flicks bring something special to the table, like hanging doll parts for instance! London stage actress Margaret (BURN WITCH BURN) Johnston as Mrs. Von Sturm, brings her own special brand of insanity to the party!
Sir John (TORTURE GARDEN) Standing has the role of Mrs. Von Sturm's son, Mark! Sir John has had a very active career, and was in a short, a TV series, and a movie released just this year! Mark seems to have a few issues of his own!
"It was THIS big!!" The Touchable Judy Huxtable is Louise Saville, the daughter of one of the men in the string quartet!
Judy was also in "Die Screaming Marianne" and "Scream And Scream Again!!!"
A doll is delivered to Louise's Dad, Alexander (THE SON OF DR. JEKYLL) Knox as Frank Saville, and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to visualize mentally what happens next! The former string quartet trimmed down to a trio, is now only a duet!
IF you're one of those kind of people that doesn't like dolls, then this is the prefect movie for you, because even the gal who sells cigarettes in the bar, Greta (THE DEADLY BEES) Farrer has one for you! "Cigars, cigarettes, freaky little weird dolls, cigars, cigarettes............"
One of the two remaining members is an accomplished artiste, Robert (BLOOD BEAST FROM OUTER SPACE) Crewdson as Victor Ledoux! Here's a look at Victor's model compared to his actual work!
Did I fail to mention that "The Psychopath" was written by famed "Psycho" author, Robert Bloch!?!
Besides painting, Victor Ledoux was also a sculptor! His studio also included a car junkyard where he salvages metal for his scuptures. Victor admits to The Inspector that he doesn't even like his own work, but it sells, and that was all that really mattered! The lower shot is more Freddie Francis madness!!
Thorley (PETTICOAT PIRATES, TROG, VAMPIRE CIRCUS) Walters as the nervous Marin Roth, gets pretty upset when he finds a doll in his own image!
And then the quartet was no more, and you would think that would be the end of the story, but.........
......during further investigation at Victor's junkyard studio, Inspector Holloway finds a doll that looks like HIM in one of the old cars right before it blows to Hell!!
How come these bars where you could go and sketch aren't popular anymore? I guess there's just not enough of you guys out there drawing! See all the fun you're missing out on watching TV!!
Even the gal who worked at the doll factory, Gina (THE DEADLY BEES) Gianelli as Gina, gets her own doll after she goes out on a date with Mark Von Sturm. During the rolling credits at the end of the film, the Von Sturms are listed as having the last name Maugham!
The main music from
"THE PSYCHOPATH" was composed by Elisabeth (PARANOIAC) Lutyens, and some of it was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and arranged by Elizabeth, but the rockin' song from the club scene was written and performed by Faces and/or Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood!!
Unless somebody releases "The Psychopath" on DVD like they should, you're going to play Hell finding a copy, but I'll be damned if I'm going to tell you the ending, because that's something you need to discover for yourself! "The Psychopath" is a real jewel, and it's well worth mucking around trying to find a copy!! Good luck on your journey!
This movie is DEEP, and I'm going to be honest, I fell asleep the first two times I tried to watch it, but it was late, and I blame El Blanco, not "Pitfall" but let me tell you this, on a film like this, the third time's the charm anyway! The very strange music, if that's what you want to call it, is a combination of the talents of Toshi (Eros Plus Massacre) Ichiyanagi, Yuji (Pale Flower) Takahashi, and Tôru (Crazed Fruit) Takemitsu! 
"Pitfall" starts off a little slow,with a couple of hard working guys and a kid in postwar Japan. Life is Rice, but WTF is really going on? Dig a little deeper and we see maybe everything is not as it seems!
The main guy here is Hisashi Igawa, a man with 124 acting credits, without even one giant monster among them! Hisashi has just got a letter beckoning him to show up at a certain spot, and he will supposedly be assured a better job!
The place he goes to is nothing but a ghost town, with nothing but one woman still trying to keep her candy store open! The irony of it being a ghost town will soon be understood!
Flies, ants, and snakes are frequent fliers in this reality! In the previous 10 years Director Hiroshi Teshigahara only had a chance to do a handful of short documentaries, and "Pitfall" was his first real chance to show the world what he had, and he wasn't going to blow the opportunity!
For whatever reason, Hisashi has been set up! He's out in the middle of nowhere and this cat all dressed in white is tailing him. It's not long before the cat catches and disposes of it's prey! And the viewer says, What in the Hell is going on??
Hisashi's son witnesses the whole thing! The boy was played by Kazuo Miyahara in his only film appearance ever!
Hisashi literally appears to spring back to life after being viciously attacked and stabbed, but in reality.........
......HE'S DEAD!! He's now a ghost unable to be seen or heard by humans, but he's still walking the planet!
Hisashi meets another ghost whose neck is permanently broken for eternity! This ghost asks Hisashi if he ate before he was killed, and when he says No, he's informed that he's going to be permanently starving forever!!!
So as it turns out, what all this was leading up to, is, the Pit Boss for one of the local unions just happens to look just like Hisashi, and he was also supposed to be in that same area at the same time, so they assume, not knowing that Hisashi was summoned to come to that spot, that it was just a case of mistaken identity!
Hisashi has a different take on the whole situation!!!
In the meantime, the candy shop owner, Sumie Sasaki, who is still working in Japanese TV today, gets raped by an ignorant rogue cop, and then the man in white comes back and kills her, even though she did everything he asked of her, like physically describing Hisashi's killer as the leader of the opposing union pit crew!
The leaders of the two opposing unions have a conversation that I'm sure is still going on today!!
Then right about F'ing here it really starts to get confusing! Otsuka, the Pit Boss goes to the abandoned town where the guy that looked like him was killed, and he finds the dead shopkeeper, and she thinks he's the dead Hisashi, but he can only have contact with her dead body as she watches on helplessly! What a Fustercluck!!!
The two ghosts watch on helplessly as the two Pit Bosses come to the final determination that they can never come to any agreement!!
One guy stabs the other before the other guy gets drowned! It's a draw! The final draw, and unfortunately for both, this is now their stupid life together for eternity!
If the man in white has all the answers, he's not telling, because the questions are coming from ghosts, and he can't hear them!!
Hiroshi Teshigahara idolized the work of Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel, and I think it's pretty self evident in this painting of his, and in "Pitfall!" If you don't like intelligent black and white foreign flicks with sub-titles, then avoid this movie like the plague, but if that's your cup of green tea, you can get this DVD from Netflix for some reason you should be thankful for!
