Lovesusti
The Worst Film Ever
Raymond Sierra
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
JLRVancouver
"Wicked, wicked" is a gimmick movie, so I had low expectations and was not disappointed. As a moderately graphic slasher movie from the early '70s, the film was OK, with a sufficiently creepy killer whose motive was surprisingly disturbing for the era (and rating). The split-screen gimmick ("Duo-vision") was distracting and didn't add anything to the movie other than making it a novelty item (and therefore earning it a place on some people's 'life-lists'), and for the most part, the acting was weak to amateur (and exception being Arthur O'Connell's not particularly challenging Maintenance Engineer character). Presumably intended to be a 'horror comedy', there are odd interludes throughout (such as the women playing the organ) and the film really starts to go off the rails toward the end with the 'sex in the presidential suite montage'. To some extent, "Wicked, wicked" has achieved cult status, so will always find viewers but most people would likely consider it a time-waster at best. As a survivor of the '70's, I can attest to the accuracy of the most frightening aspect of the movie: the Godawful proto-disco fashion and hair styles
wurliguy
I find this movie very interesting. I love the split screen. There is plenty to look at and plenty of story to pay attention to.The entire cast is excellent in their roles.The Coronado Hotel is a fabulous setting for this film.The music is reminiscent of a silent film with true theaters organ accompaniment. The music being the original theaters organ score for The Phantom of the Opera, and it works completely. The action scenes and the organ music match up perfectly. The modern music works well too.This is an very unusual and unique movie that deserves a look, but unlike most of todays films where I see a lot of people texting through the whole thing, Wicked-Wicked works best if you pay attention to both screens. This film has a lot of story to tell.Although this movie contains violent murders, it is still quite a lot of fun. Think Satire, not comedy.This had to be difficult to film,, direct, edit, and keep everything flowing as well as it does. It is Technically brilliant.This film is from the past, when variety in entertainment was the norm, people took chances, directors experimented, and CGI had yet to be thought of.
moonspinner55
An entire movie filmed in split-screen? Well, almost...and it's almost difficult criticizing a low-budget effort which nevertheless clearly demonstrates a filmmaker's ambition and courage. Richard L. Bare, who directed the film from his own screenplay (and also served as co-producer!), is unfortunately too derivative in his approach--and too unskilled a film technician--to pull this gimmick off successfully, and "Wicked, Wicked" leaves itself open for ridicule (it seems like a put-on anyway). At a beach-front hotel in California, an ex-cop-turned-security guard suspects one of the staff to be a killer who preys on single blonde women; meanwhile, his former wife is appearing nightly as the singer in the lounge, and she's decided to start wearing a blonde wig! Tatty-looking farrago financed by M-G-M (!) has a few bits of over-the-top violence but absolutely no suspense. The split-screen is used most often to show what's going on in the foreground, but once in awhile Bare gets imaginative and employs it for subtext (while guest Madeleine Sherwood is telling the electrician about her years in the ballet, the other screen shows us she was really a hoochie-koochie dancer). Though not profound, this is an interesting alternative to the clichéd "flashback" cut, but Bare nearly ruins it with stop-motion effects and other trickery (he may have had a good eye, but he doesn't show enough confidence--either that or he was short on material). Tiffany Bolling's bewigged chanteuse sings the title tune (which must be heard to be believed) while Edd "Kookie" Byrnes plays a lifeguard wanted by the F.B.I. If anything needed punching up it was Bare's screenplay, which could kindly be described as "Wretched, Wretched." *1/2 from ****
lazarillo
This movie has several strikes against it from the outset. First off, is the split-screen ("duo-vision") gimmick, which is effective when used sparingly by filmmakers like Brian DePalma (or going WAY back silent French filmmaker Abel Gance), but is pretty annoying when used extensively (check out the ill-advised sequel "More American Graffitti"), and likely to give many viewers a splitting headache. Then there is the killer who is stalking a seaside hotel. The movie not only makes no attempt to hide his identity from the start, but the clues he leaves along the way are so incredibly obvious that you want to scream at the protagonist (a dimwitted, womanizing security guard)for not being able to figure out who he is. Finally there's the wretched theme song ("Wicked, wicked, that's the ticket. . .") that was apparently actually sung by actress Tiffany Bolling, who should have stuck to stripping off in bad movies like this (and speaking a stripping off, Bolling takes her usual gratuitous shower in this movie behind a particularly opaque shower curtain, just to add insult to injury).Despite all this though, I kind of enjoyed this movie. It has an enjoyably nasty sense of humor, and only in the 1970's could anyone possibly get away with making a wrongheaded experiment in cinematic ineptitude like this and still have it backed by a major studio (MGM). As for those who find this misogynistic or offensive, check out a couple other Tiffany Bolling vehicles/feminist treatises "The Candy Snatchers" and "Centerfold Girls" sometime!
