The Sadist (1963)
Directed by James Landis
Starring Arch Hall Jr., Richard Alden, Marilyn Manning, Don Russell, Helen Hovey

One of the things that always set low budget filmmakers apart from the big studios is that they were always willing to take risks and tackle subjects the bigwigs wouldn’t touch. In 1958, Charles Starkweather went on a killing spree, taking his 15-year-old girlfriend Caril Fugate along for the fun. When it was over, they had murdered 11 people, including Fugate’s own 2-year-old step-sister. At that time, Hollywood wouldn’t dare touch a subject like this one. It wouldn’t be until 1973, when Terrence Malick would direct the film Badlands. But in 1963, only after 5 years since those tragic crimes, James Landis wrote and directed a film inspired by this murderous rampage. The film was called The Sadist.

One would think that a film made in the early ‘60s would be quite a bit more tame compared by today’s standards and surely wouldn’t be too dark in content and nature. That is exactly what Landis and his crew gave the audience. Three school teachers who are on their way to an out-of-state football game when they run into car trouble. They find a junkyard a little ways off the highway, in hopes of finding some help. At first they can’t find anybody around. But then out pops Charles A. Tibbs, grinning ear to ear. And holding a gun.

Up until Tibbs’ arrival, the dialog is nice, clean, polite, and ever so pleasant, making the viewer think we’re watching an episode of Leave it to Beaver. This sets them up for a big surprise when Tibbs then appears and torments his three captives with little mind games. Once the three captives discover that Tibbs is the one responsible for the recent murders in Nebraska, they realize they are in some serious trouble. The comments from the them, like calling him “in-human” and “an animal” and asking him how he could do such things, really shows what the American people were thinking about those crimes and Starkweather. How could a person do all those horrible things?

When we first see Tibbs, he’s walking with his knees bent, half squatting, squinting his eyes and a silly grin on his face. When he talks, in between his giggles, we think he’s just some sort of goofball punk. But it doesn’t take long before we realize this guy is just plain crazy. Arch Hall Jr. plays Tibbs with such relish that he really brings this character to life. Not going so over the top that it becomes campy, but enough to where we know how crazy he is. He is just so disconnected with society that nothing is out-of-bounds for him. He constantly torments his prisoners, getting off on how they squirm, beg and plead with him. When they try to reason with him, he accuses them of implying that they’re better than him and that he’s stupid, which then only makes it worse.

This was the first job as cinematographer for Vilmos Zsigmond, who would go on to work on many films for Al Adamson, such as Satan’s Sadist (1969), Five Bloody Graves (1970), Blood of Ghastly Horror (1972), and quite a few more. He would rise to fame working on films like Deliverance (1972), The Deer Hunter (1978), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which he won an Oscar for. Throughout his career, he has been nominated a total of 5 times for Best Cinematography. This talent could even be seen in this early film, with several camera angles and shots that you wouldn’t normally find in such a low budget production.

The Sadist is the type of film that might be overlooked because of the budget and the no-name cast. For fans of early independent films, this is definitely a must see, but also, if you are a fan of gritty horror stories from real life, this is a terrifying portrait of a person from the headlines. It’s one of those movies that you wish was complete fiction. But in any case, this is a great example when some talent filmmakers had a good subject matter, and some decent people to work on the film, which resulted in a powerful and well made film.