Daddy's Deadly Darling

An exceptional scummy movie, beautiful for what it gives you in its limitations. Like all such films, it's a work of character, this one about lost people losing themselves further to physical isolation and a kind of desolation, which is yes, moral, but also broadly societal by the notable absence. It comes from truth: I couldn't help but think of Marc Lawrence's (star/director) testimony to HUAC and his blacklisting after he fed his friends to the pi... well, they did eat people.

Absolutely bizarre slice of American underground horror. The fact that this is woefully misadvertised made me even more engrossed in its genuinely indescribable weirdness. The plot isn't much more than slowly unraveling tragic circumstances. It could easily be setup for trashy exploitation but the details & execution are way off in a manner that somehow evokes a very surreal & melancholic mood. Marc & Toni Lawrence are both actually great. Watch the shorter cut to avoid a disasterous opening.

Has a ridiculous, terrible, unneccessary tacked-on opening, then it gets good. I can understand how some would see this as just a bad movie, but I fucking love the surreal, nightmarish atmosphere. Marc Lawrence, as Zambrini, is excellent as always. Bizarre little gem.

A bizarre early-70's psychological thriller that, sadly, is not all that thrilling. It does bring several genuinely intriguing ideas to the table, namely the dynamic between Lynn & Zambrini & the themes of sexual abuse. But it never does enough with those ideas & instead focuses most of its time on a nonsense subplot about people turning into pigs, because that's definitely what everybody came to see. The writing is bad & the acting really isn't better, leaving a clunky final product.