Sweet Kill aka The Arousers (1972) Venice Beach Sexploitation Neo Noir

Written and Directed by Curtis Hanson (The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, L.A. Confidential), Cinematography by Ed Anderson and Daniel Lacambre, Music by Charles Bernstein.

The film stars Tab Hunter (he was one of the hottest teen idols of the 1950s nicknamed "The Sigh Guy") as Eddie Collins, Cherie Latimer (Shampoo) as Lauren, Nadyne Turney as Barbara, Isabel Jewell as Mrs. Cole (Born to Kill) , Linda Leider as Vickie, Roberta Collins (The Big Doll House, Caged Heat) as Call Girl, John Aprea (The Manchurian Candidate, Bullit) as Richard, Rory Guy as Henry, Kate McKeown as Sherry, and John Pearce as Mr. Howard. 

Eddie Collins has serious mommy problems.  

A blonde comes home does a little striptease, She plays with her pet parrot and then lays down naked on her bed. The last shot shows a pair of sneakers poking out from behind a curtain, just beside the bed. 

Sexploitation right at the get go, lol

Cut to another pair of sneakers these are on standing on an open window sill, we watch as they step into the apartment of a brunet.

The brunet in a blue robe is running water for her bath. We watch as the pair of sneakers step into a room and walk towards the sound of the water. At a chest or draws the intruder slides one open and rummages through the woman's underthings.

The last shot is of the woman hearing the stranger, standing up in her tub and wrapping herself in a towel. Fade to black. 

We get a credit sequence superimposed over a shot of pigeons cooping on a Venice Beach, California, rooftop. 

Cut to Eddie Collins. He's breathing hard sitting on a swing. We assume he's doing some exercise routine. 

Tab Hunter as Eddie Collins

Eddie moves to parallel bars, there, something catches his attention. Cut to a VW stuck in the sand. Two young ladies Lauren and Sherry in distress. Eddie helps them out putting some driftwood boards under the rear wheels. Apparently Eddie is successful. 

We cut to Eddie's apartment. The Sherry must have decided to reward Eddie. Eddie and Sherry are both seated on a couch. They kiss and start making out. Clothes are shucked. They get into a horizontal position. But Sherry notices something is missing in action. Eddie has no wood. 

They get into a horizontal position. But Sherry notices something is missing in action. Eddie has no wood. 

Kate McKeown as Sherry

Sherry gets up off the couch. At first you can tell that she's thinking that she must be doing something wrong. She asks Eddie. "is it me?" Eddie has a perplexed look on his face.

Crazy Eyes Eddie

She lays back down on top of Eddie telling him "I want to do this." Eddie is starring wide-eyed off into space. Sherry starts kissing Eddie and he winces. WTF? Sherry sits up again.

It's you!

Looks at Eddie, then reaches out and rips opens his button fly. Eddie reacts kicking her away and she flies backwards. Her head hits the corner of a table. Its enough to crush her skull. She's dead.

Eddie sits up and touches her gently. We next see him getting a sheet and sewing Sherry's body into it. He cleans up the bloodspot on the rug, and goes through her purse. 

We watch as he carries the body up to the roof and over to the abandoned building roof next door. There he opens the roof hatch and drops the body down, re closes the hatch and heads to his apartment.  

The next day we see a couple plugging up vent hole in the wall of the building attic next door. The Man is up on a ladder. The attic is infested with roosting pigeons. 

They also use some tire chains to seal the roof hatch. The guy remarks to Mrs. Cole, the buildings owner, that with no food the pigeons wont last long. Starve them to death. Nice guys. 

Cut to a locker room. It's revealed that Eddie Collins is a coach / gym teacher. We get a scene outside at the track where one of his students asks Eddie about a girl he likes, she doesn't like him.

Eddie tells him to not come on too strong because women don't like it. Tells him to take things to a point then cool it. They go run a lap.

Cut to Eddie on a "date" with Barbara a neighbor woman from his apartment house. Barbara is dressed to the nines and entertaining Eddie. She puts on music and starts to dance enticingly, for Eddie sitting sullenly on the couch. When she make advances Eddie is indifferent, and basically rejects her. 

Nadyne Turney as Barbara

He goes stomping off back to his place. There, he's raging about the apartment slamming the door, banging his fist on a counter and stomping back and forth, when there's a knock on the door. Thinking its "her" he flings open to door and finds Laura the other girl from the VW. 

Cherie Latimer as Lauren

Eddie has a crazed look in his eyes. Lauren wants to know if he's seen her friend. Eddie tells her no. He lies that she just had a drink and then left telling Eddie that she was going to see a friend who lived nearby. Lauren we can see by the look on her face really doesn't believe him. 

We next get a sequence of Eddie taking a night swim in the Pacific. It ends with Eddie sitting on the sand watching the breakers.

This is followed by a sequence with a blonde call girl in Eddie's apartment. She is putting on red lipstick, Then we see her sitting down adjusting her nylon. She is wearing an old fashion garter belt, panties and a bra. 

Eddie is watching her as she puts on her other stocking. When she is finished dressing the woman is wearing a white top and a block below the knee skirt. The blonde asks Eddie "how do I look"? Eddie mentions her hair. 

She says she forgot. She puts her hair in a pony tail then places a small white pill box hat with a veil on her head. This completes the costume. 

She then goes and lays on the bed. She is supposed to be Eddie's dead mother. Eddie goes over and lifts her veil, kisses her face. 

He then lifts her up and unbuttons the back of her top taking it off, He undo's her bra and unzips her skirt. 

We last see him kneeling on the floor beside the bed, laying his head on the call girls breast while he beats himself off, (tastefully off camera, lol).

Eddie gets off with dead women. Eddie has more encounters. We see him slinking through alleys at night looking for more "dates."

It all starts going Noirsville when Sherry's dead body starts to decompose and smell. His next door neighbor complains to Mrs Cole, but she just thinks it's the dead pigeons starting to rot. 

Isabel Jewell as Mrs. Cole

Later, when Eddie is in Barbara's apartment trying to mend things with her, Lauren and a boyfriend break into Eddie's apartment like amateur detectives, Lauren is looking for clues to the missing Sherry. It reminds you a bit of Jeffrey Beaumont and Sandy Williams David in Lynch's Blue Velvet.   

Lauren finds Sherry's birth control pills in Eddie's medicine cabinet. Ah Ha! However, a squeaky floor board alerts Eddie to an intruder up in his apartment and he rushes out of Barbara's and upstairs to his place while at the same time Lauren is going down a separate back stairway to the VW. 

Eddie runs into his flat and heads to a closet where surprise, surprise he's got another body sewn into a sheet for disposal later. 

He hears a car start and rushes back downstairs and out on the street where he catches a glimpse of the white VW driving away. He knows who it is and from Sherry's pocketbook which he as kept, he finds her drivers license and her address and he knows where Lauren lives. 

Noirsville

Here is California cheapo Sexploitation Noir that probably had inserts added to the original film. The first two sequences and a later sequence with a woman washing her hair in a kitchen sink, I'm guessing, could have been added post production.  

It's a worth a watch to see early Curtis Hanson. The streamer I found was on Daily Motion. Tab Hunter does creeps really well and it was a blast to see Isabel Jewel - Lawrence Tierney's first victim from Born To Kill again after all these years this time in sort of the Ester Howard landlady role. 6.5/10.