Don't Anser the Phone

Ratio: 1.85:1 (16/9)
Lang: English  German
Ruuning time: 95 mins
Code: PAL 2
Extras: Trailers
Label: Xrated

Kirk Smith (Nicholas Worth), a stocky, balding photographer living in California, spends most of his free time raping, mutilating and strangling beautiful young women, all because of his troubled childhood and an extreme hatred of the opposite sex. A Vietnam vet, Smith eludes the police as he stalks his way through LA, and he also taunts radio psychiatrist Dr. Lindsay Gale (Flo Gerrish) by calling her show and pretending to be the heavily accented “Ramone.” When Dr. Lindsay believes that the “strangler” has committed a murder over the airwaves, she alerts investigating homicide cops Sgt. Hatcher (Ben Frank) and Lt. Chris McCabe (James Westmoreland), the latter whom she forms a romance with. Strangler Smith later tracks down Dr. Lindsay at her home with sights on making her his latest victim.

Worth is an actor of great talent, and he gives his character more than enough dimension. Without his performance, the film would be totally ordinary and unbearable. Worth plays Smith as a total nutcase with a lot of mental issues, as he's seen in private aggressively weightlifting and talking to himself, and whimpering like a baby or making animal-like noises when he’s in murder mode. Like the killer in NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY, Smith often pretends to be someone else to infiltrate his victims, and a unique characteristic is his penchant for strangling women with a large Vietnamese coin sheathed in an elastic stocking. Director Robert Hammer was at least able to capture the street sleaze and flamboyance of late 1970s Hollywood Boulevard, and his POV shots of the fiend on the prowl give the film some style, even if it’s not the most innovative technique.