Chilling Classics Cthursday: NAKED MASSACRE (1976)

Sigh. Honestly, when I read the synopsis on the sleeve of this week's Chilling Classic, I should have said "no thank you, taking the week off, everyone!" 

In Belfast, a group of eight nurses share a home while working at various hospitals and clinics throughout the city. Entering into their lives is a crazed Vietnam veteran with a hatred for women who decides to take out his hatred on them. Stalking them one by one, the killer terrorizes and tortures the women while the authorities attempt to track him down.

If you said "Oh, so it's Richard Speck? But Belfast and Vietnam?" you get some kind of prize because you're right on the money! Except this movie--also known as Born for Hell because the killer has a "Born for Hell" tattoo, you know, kinda like Speck's "Born to Raise Hell" tattoo--features more sexual assault than Speck's 1966 spree. 

But I though, this is the covenant I entered with Mill Creek Entertainment and a horror blog, so buck up, girlie, and do your duty.

I didn't make it, sorry.

To tell the truth, Naked Massacre (sigh part deux) begins as something that almost wants to be interesting, or at least it wants us to think it does. A Vietnam vet on his way home after scamming his way out of service winds up in Belfast during "The Troubles," as Protestants and Catholics and the IRA and British forces clash in the streets. A bomb goes off in a church, children "play" by reenacting firing squad executions, and our nurses get their first taste of death. The vet makes a point about how he "swapped one Hell for another" and while that's not exactly a profound point, I felt for a second like maybe I'd end up surprised that the synopsis wasn't giving the movie proper credit. You know, something about governent-sanctioned violence and so on.

It got even more interesting when the vet formed a quasi-friendship with his fellow flophouse denizen, a fey Viet refugee, who seemed to clock the vet as perhaps a kindred spirit, or perhaps just a woman-hater.

But any potential Somethings to Say flew out the window when he arrived at the house and the film heads into exploitation territory, its true destination all along. Armed with a large switchblade, and sets about terrorizing, raping, and murdering the young women, and that was where I bid the film a middle-fingered adieu. 

I decided to read some other reviews and thoughts, though; I had no intention of going back to finish the movie (life is short, I could be watching...anything else), but maybe there would be some attempt at a point to all of it. Doesn't seem so, and if you'd like to read the descriptions of what the girls are forced to endure, then you are welcome to go find it as I'm not going to waste the energy typing all that abhorrent shit out.

But there were also comments I saw from exploitation fans who were bummed the movie didn't go far enough, that the "naked chicks" were the best part of it and that, as one hilariously-phrased gripe put it, there were better movies to watch if you wanted to watch "people/women" be terrorized. 

No one ever comes here looking for hot exploitation tips (or if they do, they must leave quickly) as it's not my purview nor my bag. I dabble on the rare occasion (a girl sometimes has cannibal feelings, okay), but I'll never see the point in sexual assault as titillation fare ever. But hey, this movie is another in the Mill Creek to Fancy Blu-ray pipeline, so.

There sure are all kinds of horror fans around.