XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

trishaade When I saw the cumulative review score on IMDb, I was quite surprised. I hated this movie - absolutely hated it. 95% of the time, I'm in agreement with whatever rating IMDb has given it. Not this time.Arch Hall, Jr. is more annoying than any character I have seen in a movie. He's hammy, squinty and has an incredibly strange voice. Listening to him giggle and watching him grin throughout ran my nerves. I didn't find him frightening at all. I don't know if he was told to act that way or whether it was his idea.Most of the other actors do at least an adequate job. I have no issue with the subject matter - I watch all types of horror and suspense. This film would have been great if they had an actor worthy of the role. Unfortunately, they didn't.I know that some reviewers have really enjoyed this movie. My advice? Watch the first 15 or 20 minutes and if you can handle Arch Hall, Jr., feel free to have a go at it. If he annoys you the way he did me, I'm letting you know it doesn't get any better.

dwpollar 1st watched 7/26/2014 -- 3 out of 10(Dir-James Landis): Unwielding sadistic thriller for it's time -- even though that's really all it has going for it. The story is about three teachers who have car trouble on the way to a baseball game and pull into a car parts and repair shop on a Sunday hoping to get some assistance. They soon find out there is no-one around except two crazy young kids who threaten them at gunpoint to fix their car and let them use it. The male counterpart is a slick looking weird sounding crazy person, played by Arch Hall Jr., who we find out later has some experience in murdering other folk, and the couple is on the run for those murders. The movie could have been better if they explored a little deeper the evil character's reasoning for what they were doing but this never really happens. They start tinkering a little bit with a "survival of the fittest" mentality when the first teacher is killed and the other two are given a chance to take his place but do not offer. If these ideas were explored it would have made for a twilight-zone like experience. Instead the goofy aspects of the main evil character become centerstage and the movie relentlessly keeps going longer than movies in the early 60's usually take us. It's also kind of un-nerving to view the victims plodding through their thinking process about how to escape when you'd think that their survival instincts would just kick in. This is an interesting attempt at a genre that is overused nowadays -- but this was new for it's time -- but it just doesn't quite hit the mark.

randy4866 This is, quite likely, the worst movie ever made. The acting and dialog are right out of a Middle School play. If this could be considered art, then a chimp pooping on a canvas should be hanging in the MOMA. This is the sort of tripe about which pretentious, hipster snobs in the 60s would have had profound coffee table discussions. The most over-hyped piece of crap I've ever sat through. This makes some of the scare movies from the 1950s look like Ingmar Bergman, but this is just a low-budget piece of trash, probably knocked out in a slow afternoon on some director's ranch. Made during a period when just about anything qualified as an 'art' flick.

bkoganbing The best thing you can say about The Sadist is that Arch Hall, Jr. got away from Arch Hall, Sr. in this production. The senior Hall confined his activities to being the voice over a car radio. However it was Arch Hall, Jr. together with an equally untalented cast who were in the film as well. Another director got a performance out of him barely approaching, but missing adequacy.Three school teachers are driving to Los Angeles for a Dodger game and the car breaks down. Pulling into a service station they are taken by surprise by two thrill kill seeking kids, Hall, Jr. and Judy Bradshaw. The rest of the film is what happens to all five of them and the terror inflicted by Hall and Bradshaw on the three teachers.Based on the Starkweather/Fugate case from the previous decade. Hall is made up to look like a pompadoured teen wolf in training. He giggles like Richard Widmark in his performance. As for Bradshaw her role is confined to whispers, skipping, and sucking her thumb. Probably because she couldn't handle dialog.There were some techniques in cinematography that were not amateurish by any means which relegates The Sadist possibly to Arch Hall, Jr.'s career role. A dubious distinction by any means.I hope Johnny Depp who did so well with Ed Wood takes a look at the Halls because I know there's a story here.