The Beast That Killed Women
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

USA, NR, 60 m, 1965
Directed by Barry Mahon. Stars Byron Mabe, Delores Carlos, Barry Mahon, et al.

Alternate titles for The Beast That Killed Women are The Beast That Molested Women and (my favorite) The Beast That Ruined Women. Here’s the plot: A gorilla (the titular beast) sneaks into a nudist camp and strangles a (fully clothed) woman. Two lawmen in matching blue business suits canvas the resort and subject its unclad (and somewhat flabby) residents to a series of inane (and often inaudible) questions. After deducing that the killer ain’t human, the lawmen (one of whom put me very much in the mind of Andreas Katsulas) lay a trap, using a (fully clothed) woman as bait. When the ape shows up to kill or molest or ruin the woman, the lawmen fill his reeking hide with hot lead. The end… Hey, wait a sec. The title informs us that more than one woman is going to buy the farm, but there’s less female blood spilled in this thing than a “Sesame Street” skit featuring Count von Count. Though the women here don’t do a lot of dying, they sure do a lot of disrobing. There are tons and tons and tons of bare backsides and (100% silicone-free) boobs on display, but nary a beaver to be had. (Community standards wouldn’t permit the moviemakers go that far.) The Beast That Killed Women will leave gorehounds seeing red, but I’m sure young boys on the brim of their teenage years will find something to get off on, so to speak. Everyone else will be wishing that the world would just hurry and blow up already. 

The Beast that Killed Women is another one of those “nudie cutie” flicks from Barry Mahon, the dirty old man behind Fanny Hill Meets Dr. Erotico and The Diary of Knockers McCalla. During the ‘60s, Mahon turned out a plethora of this sort of degenerate-friendly crap before he found God or something and started making family-friendly crap like Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny and The Wonderful Land of Oz. The pictures Mahon wrote, produced, and directed may have been the antithesis of compelling, but his own life story would make for a cool biopic. (Think Tim Burton’s Ed Wood.) For example, in WWII he flew combat with the 121 Eagle Squadron, and on one mission took out two German FW-190s. He would shoot down several more fighters during the war before he was shot down himself and imprisoned at Stalag Luft III. He managed to escape, but after an arduous 400-mile hike to Czechoslovakia, he was recaptured and given two months in the cooler. Undeterred, Mahon (who became known around camp as “The Cooler King”) joined many of his fellow inmates in digging a series of tunnels, though he wasn’t physically capable of following them to freedom due to injuries he received from his previous escape attempt. One of the prisoners who had to stay behind with him until General Patton liberated the camp was Paul Brickhill, a claustrophobic. Brickhill went on to pen The Great Escape, which was later turned into a blockbuster movie by John Sturges. In fact, Steve McQueen’s role of Capt. Hilts was based in part on Mahon. Gee whiz, with those kinds of life experiences to draw from, you’d think this fellow wouldn’t need to squander precious celluloid on something as obtuse and frivolous as The Beast That Killed Women. But he should’ve never been allowed near a movie camera in the first place; Ed Wood’s left nut had more talent. Actually, everybody involved in this debacle—from Mahon down to the key grip—seem totally ignorant about the fineries of cinema. (A gaggle of shit-faced rhesus monkeys could’ve slapped something together with more cohesion.) I realize Mahon was working on this thing with a budget that even Coleman Francis would find lacking, but The Blair Witch Project, El Mariachi, and Primer demonstrated that it doesn’t take a lot of scratch to make a good movie. The Beast That Killed Women isn’t for cinephiles (or even casual moviegoers); it’s for the mentally impaired or fans of those obnoxious “Girls Gone Wild” videos. Mahon can’t be bothered with something as fruity as artistic aspirations; he’s all about the selling point, which in this case is T&A. But the way he photographs naked women is so flat and apathetic that he siphons the beauty right out of their figures. The nudity grows boring by the middle of the first reel, and Mahon couldn’t care less about pulling up the slack. (His approach suggests a lack of concern, if not utter contempt, for his audience.) The Beast That Killed Women runs barely an hour, yet it’s padded with more mind-numbing filler than a bad Marx Brothers movie. When the ambulance shows up to collect the gorilla’s aforementioned victim, ten seconds of pertinent information is stretched into ten minutes: the paramedics climb out of the ambulance, the paramedics remove a litter from the back of the ambulance, the paramedics carry the litter through a grassy field until they reach the body, the paramedics bag the body… Well, I’m sure you get the idea. Andy Warhol’s Empire State had more thrills. 

I’ve never bought into that baloney about a nudist colony being an oasis for free expression; starker parks are nothing but places where exhibitionists can indulge in licentious behavior with other like-minded perverts. Mahon knew that, but what differentiated his skin flicks from similar product is that he was foolish enough to think that people wanted a storyline. Well, I, for one, hate it when my porn (be it hard or soft) is weighted down by a plot. Give me the unrehearsed filth and debauchery of a Bang Bus video anytime over derisorily affected “porno chic” like Behind the Green Door or Curse of the Catwoman. That also goes for my “nudie cuties”: a beach, a bottle of baby oil, and a horde of curvaceous babes in the altogether and I’m a happy guy. But when you throw in an ape that jumps around like a crank-addicted hip-hop boy with blue balls, crabs, and the seven-year itch, you’re spoiling what might’ve become a crisis reserve in my spank bank. Still, I found myself missing the ape from time to time; things got so boring when he wasn’t around that I had to call upon every ounce of strength just to keep from nodding off. I found the action almost impossible to follow, too. You never get a sense of the layout of the nudist camp; you have to rely on the (ahem) actors to describe it to you. There are numerous references to “the barracks” and “Tahitian huts,” but we never see the exteriors of either. In fact, there are virtually no establishing shots, so most of the time you have no idea where the hell you are. The “action” is largely confined to a few tight spaces: a bunk bed, the corner of a locker room, a swimming pool, a leafy arbor that leads to God knows where, and the front of a Coke machine. (I’m sure the suits at Coca-Cola didn’t pony up one red cent to get their product plugged in this unholy mess, but Mahon stages as many scenes in front of their logo as he can, probably because it was the only attention-grabbing thing he had access to—other than all those exposed breasts, of course.) You get the feeling that if Mahon moved his camera just one inch this way or that way we’d become privy to something that would smash the entire illusion. I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie that looked so cramped and hemmed-in. If Mahon had any money to spend on this thing, he must’ve blown it on the gorilla costume, which doesn’t look half-bad, at least when you compare it to the ones used in A*P*E or The Mighty Gorga. That’s about the nicest thing I can say about this slothfully directed, insultingly written, clumsily photographed, ineptly edited, laughably acted pile of rubbish. Even the raincoat crowd will feel that it leaves a lot to be desired. 

January 10, 2009 

“The Beast That Killed Women” Review. © Copyright 2009 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.