The Witch Who Came From The Sea

Molly’s enjoying a relaxing day at the beach, regaling her tween nephews with stories of their family’s adventures at sea, when she notices a group of male bodybuilders working out. She nearly salivates at the sight of their bulging muscles and, more particularly, the huge bulges in the crotches of their speedos. From her erotic revery, she descends into a trance-like state which climaxes(!!) in a blood-stained vision of their deaths-by-mutilations! Well, can any movie have a better opening scene? Nope. No way. But can any movie NOT go downhill from such a brilliant beginning? Probably not. And certainly not this one, a low-budget ‘70s grindhouse sexploitation shocker which has long dreary sequences of inept police procedural as the authorities try to track down the psycho who is mutilating he-men who appear on TV (football players, Marlboro Man-type commercial actors, etc.). Of course, the psycho is Molly, and the only other memorable moments are the porn-grade death scenes and ultra-lurid flashbacks which distastefully detail the nautical childhood trauma which turned adult Molly into an alcoholic homicidal nymphomaniac(!). Despite the tedious whodunnit interludes, the film remains watchable to its gOOfball tragic ending because of the offbeat seductive S&M charm of lead actress Millie Perkins. Her Molly is the strangest broken character you’ll ever see, and that she remains somewhat believable and always sympathetic throughout the muddled psycho-sexual babble is a testament to her performance (and her forty-year-old body, which shines like a star in its several nude scenes). And has any actress ever played two more polar-opposite characters than Millie Perkins? Molly in this crazy-ass thing, and Anne Frank in her film debut seventeen years earlier! That’s about as insane as this Shudder trash bin movie.