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The Sadist [1963] [DVD]

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Arch Hall Jr. (Actor), Marilyn Manning (Actor), James Landis (Director) Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over Format: DVD
4 out of 5 stars 5 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Actors: Arch Hall Jr., Marilyn Manning, Helen Hovey
  • Directors: James Landis
  • Format: PAL
  • Language: English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Powis Square Pictures
  • DVD Release Date: 12 Jan. 2009
  • Run Time: 92 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B001L1BT7A
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 234,279 in DVD & Blu-ray (See Top 100 in DVD & Blu-ray)

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Product Description

Product Description

Three people driving to Los Angeles for a Dodgers baseball game break down and pull into an old wrecking yard to look for repairs. However, they become held hostage by two psychotic teenagers with low morals and itchy trigger fingers. Shot in `real time', this is the first film to be based on the real life serial killers Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate, subsequently used as the inspiration for `Badlands' and `Natural Born Killers'. The Sadist is also the first feature to be photographed by the Oscar winning D.O.P. Vilmos Zsigmond.

DVD extras include a feature length commentary by Vilmos Zsigmond who discusses the filming of The Sadist and also his career as a cinematographer for films including McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Close Encounters of The Third Kind, for which he won an Oscar.

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5.0 out of 5 starsB-Movie Heaven
By Mifune on 8 Feb. 2009
Format: DVD
Director Joe Dante called this "one of the most underrated B-movies ever" and lent his own 35mm print to be remastered for this widescreen DVD. Vilmos Zsigmond (Oscar winning DOP for 'Close Encounters') provides a full length commentary in which he talks not only of 'The Sadist' but also his work with Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg and Peter Fonda.

Three teachers on the way to a ball game are held hostage by two sociopathic teenagers when their car breaks down. Forced to submit to the thrill-killers twisted games, the teachers must try to buy enough time to escape with their lives. So far so schlocky. So what raises this movie so far above expectations to become the classic it is?

A combination of low budget ingenuity, untapped talent, and that beautiful moment when you know that all are raising their game. Lightning strikes but once.

B-movie legend Arch Hall, Jr., plays the giggling psycho Charlie and his performance, whilst never subtle, is constantly unsettling and vicious. Writer/director James Landis crafts a tight, real-time thriller that never lets up the tension and keeps the viewer in the thick of things for the full 90 minutes. And last but not least, Oscar winner Vilmos Zsigmond breaks his cinematographic cherry with a mini master class in lighting, Gregg Toland-esque deep focus, and classic composition.

The whole thing cost $33,000 to shoot. It's brilliant. It puts 95% of other thrillers to shame. The violence is nihilistic and shocking. Whenever I show this movie to friends they can't believe it is from '63. You need this in your collection. It's a lost classic.

It's also nice to know that someone is willing to spend some time on the package itself.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Small Masterpiece.
By J. Upton on 23 Jan. 2009
Format: DVD
Three squares on the way to a ball game. Car trouble. A deserted garage. "Hey,anybody there?" A cut telephone chord. "The sooner we get out of here the better I'll feel".
We've been here before. We're in B territory again. This one's reputation is deserved though. The cast is small,the set is tight,it never opens out,there's no real attempt at backstory or motivation or any of that soft stuff,just a guy,a girl,a gun and a wrong turn.
And this guy is never going to play a wet dream president,Sissy Spacek would not look twice at him,no cop is going to ask him for his autograph,he just giggles and giggles and waves his gun. He knows how it's going to end,so do you but you stick with it. And of course,you are wrong. And that's what seperates this from the pack.
A small masterpiece,beautifully shot,beautifully packaged,highly recommended.
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5.0 out of 5 starsArch Hall Jnr's finest hour! (note: I saw the restored version in widescreen)
By Richard Bowden on 8 Sept. 2006
Format: DVD
At the centre of The Sadist is Arch Hall Jr, the cult B-movie star with an appearance that, in one uneasy package, combined that of an Elvis and Michael J. Pollard. Hall Jr's film career was instigated by his producer-father Hall Sr, (himself the inspiration of a cult comedy, Jack Webb's The Last Time I Saw Archie, 1961), who saw his son appear in a succession of films in the early 1960s. They range from a favourite escaped-caveman-on the-loose film (Eegah, 1962), to z-grade rock 'n' roll flicks (Wild Guitar, 1962) and a surreally bad thriller (The Nasty Rabbits, 1964). All retain a loyal following, principally because how truly awful they are. Arch Hall's podgy screen incompetence, together with the risible screen scenarios he perpetually struggled through, virtually created a genre all of its own. By all accounts a reluctant participant in his father's cinematic aspirations on his behalf, Hall Jr happily disappeared from the screen after the dismal western Deadwood '76 (1965), and made a career as a pilot thereafter. The director of Hall's swansong, as well as several others of his films, was James Landis (not to be confused with the director of The Blues Brothers). Landis' career was a similar tale of pot-boiling exploitation work, tailing off into obscurity. Astonishingly, Landis also directed The Sadist.

Inspired by the commercial success of Psycho, as well as the real life murder spree of teenage killer Charles Starkweather and girlfriend - the exploits of whom also inspired the better known Badlands (1973), The Sadist comes as a revelation to those used to the inept dross Landis and Hall Jr were responsible for elsewhere. It is as if, for once in their otherwise unremarkable careers, true inspiration finally took fire and they both found a vehicle they were born to make.Read more ›
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1.0 out of 5 starsSadist 1963
By Nice_Lieutenant on 28 Sept. 2015
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
Super bad edition of a laughable s***ty cult film.....
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4.0 out of 5 starsAnother overlooked entry in the psycho killer genre
By Daniel Jolley HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on 28 Dec. 2003
Format: DVD
Normally a movie with a title such as The Sadist will get my horror glands salivating, but the prospect of watching Arch Hall, Jr., trying to act for an hour and a half inspired a morbid fear all its own in my soul; I think those who've seen Eegah! can understand my dilemma. Fear not, friends, for Arch Hall, Jr., does not - I repeat, does not - play the guitar or sing in this movie. He does try to act, unfortunately, but this is as close to a good performance as he would ever have. Hall plays Charles Tibbs, a blood-thirsty psycho enjoying the thrills of an interstate killing spree alongside his childlike girlfriend Judy (played by Marilyn Manning, yet another Eegah! alumnus). The character of Tibbs is loosely based on real-life killer Charles Starkweather. On this particular day, a trio of schoolteachers off to enjoy a day of baseball at Dodger Stadium end up rolling snake-eyes in the crap shoot of fate. Their car breaks down on the way, and they end up at the salvage yard of death, a place under new, albeit temporary management - one Charles Tibbs. So begins an afternoon of terror, horror, and silly-looking grimacing on the face of Arch Hall, Jr., obviously upset about the complete lack of Arch and his Archers performances in the film.
Our three teachers are just normal people (although the female of the group is about the sweetest and most lovely little school marm I've ever seen); they continually prove their lack of heroism by the things they do and do not do. Nothing happens that would be considered sadistic in today's world, but I can see how this movie could have been somewhat shocking to the audiences of its day (1963). Arch Hall, Jr.Read more ›
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