Dir - Ralph Brooke
Overall: MEH
Over a dozen screen adaptations of Richard Connell's short story "The Most Dangerous Game" had been produced by the time that the lackluster indie drive-in cheapie Bloodlust! was made. Shot in 1959 though not released until two years later, this would be the only directorial effort from actor Ralph Brooke and he does a merely competent job of pointing the camera at his actors until they finish saying all of their lines. Wilton Graff turns in a by-numbers performance as the deranged, human-hunting eccentric who has set up shop on an island, remaining calm with his silky robe, waxing poetically about the glory of the kill, and eventually getting a grisly comeuppance via impaling. Otherwise though, the only other character who stands out is a guy with glasses on since this has the usual crop of bland Causation actors delivering B-level performances in a film that calls for nothing more. One can be generous and merely label this "pointless" since the material itself was already so over-done and the production design is likewise interchangeable with earlier versions, but the results are more likely to lull you to sleep than engage you with a white-knuckled tale of man vs man.
(1965)
Dir - Michael Findlay/Marshall Smith/Tamijian
Overall: WOOF
An inane, D-rent exploitation "film" that is only of interest for featuring a pre-John Lennon-wed Yoko Ono, Satan's Bed is one of many such junk heaps from the husband/wife duo of Michael and Roberta Findlay. It also splices together a presumed unreleased movie called Judas City from someone named Tamijian and good luck trying to gather any information online as to whoever that is. Basically a, (very), poor man's French New Wave knock-off shot with handheld cameras and zero dollars, it can be described as a precursor to the rape and revenge genre except that it forgets to put in the "revenge" part. Instead, we just have several women getting brutalized by criminals, including Yoko Ono who barely says anything but at least manages to keep her clothes on. Technically there is a plot, but the bulk of the dialog was ADRed over the existing footage to desperately try and cobble the Ono rape sequences in with the other rape sequences featuring a gang that is presumably led by a woman. The whole thing does not so much as end as it does just run out of scenes and it is sadly less weird and a whole lot more terrible than one would hope for.
(1967)
Dir - Terence Young
Overall: GOOD
Terence Young's tightly-wound adaptation of Frederick Knott's novel Wait Until Dark is a convoluted crime thriller with some top-notch performances from all involved. Though Richard Crenna and Jack Weston get adequate screen time as a pair of con-men who get unexpectedly caught up in Alan Arkin's elaborate scheme to retrieve some drugs that are hidden inside of a doll, it is Arkin who steels the show as a slimy villain that dons a few disguises yet remains unsettling and sinister as he pulls the strings on all parties involved. Audrey Hepburn is ideally cast as the hapless victim, an efficient though recently-inflicted blind woman whose due-diligence to survive ultimately usurps the morally corrupt criminals that are giving her one helluva crappy day. Besides a brief prologue and one or two shots outside, the entire film takes place in a basement apartment, giving it a claustrophobic feel that intensifies by the extended life-or-death finale full of grave threats, gasoline, knife-stabs, and faulty electricity. Young's suspense-building chops may not be as showy as Alfred Hitchcock's who such a project easily could have also been brought to the screen by, but he still maintains a taut grip over the material that never looses its footing with the increasing amount of details being thrown in.
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