Must say that I am not just pleasantly surprised by how GOOD of a movie William Grefe's IMPULSE was, but I am also profoundly annoyed at all of the smarmy, self-gratifying negative bomb reviews I have encountered that have given this very satisfying little low-budget Florida made regional psycho killer shocker a bum rap. My best guess is that those who were writing these reviews didn't understand what they were seeing, or went in expecting something different than what they got. Instead of reviewing the movie they saw, they stubbornly commented on what they had expected to see, namely current A-list star William Shatner in a respectable, well-budgeted, high profile project that catered to expected formulas of entertainment.
IMPULSE does not. It does not follow any standard of film-making that I can think of. It is completely unconventional in nature, highlighted by a low budget that forced those involved -- including Shatner -- to resort to their resourcefulness, guile, and wits. The result is a tightly wound little ball of paranoia who's inherent creepiness belies the usually benign PG rating. This truly is Captain Kirk as you have never seen him before, other than maybe that episode where he gets split into good and evil halves and starts goosing his busty Yeoman. As a matter of fact, cross that performance with the episode where a psychotic former lover switches bodies & consciousness with Kirk in an effort to take over the Enterprise, and you pretty much have Shatner's disturbing, unexpectedly effective performance as a deranged, psychotic grifter who targets wealthy single women with his sometime partner, Karate Pete, hilariously played in cameo by Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, minus his steel brimmed hat from GOLDFINGER.
Sure, it's only natural for critics of low budget potboiler films to point out the "depths" that the two stars had "sunk to" when accepting these roles, and indeed William Shatner has never hesitated to cringe, grimace, and snarl with disgust when asked about IMPULSE, which was at one point re-released with the obscenely suggestive title WANT A RIDE, LITTLE GIRL? Gnarly to be sure, but that's actually a line of dialog from the film and has nothing to do with what you might think: William Shatner does NOT play a pedophile, but at one point does indeed have to match wits with another little nutcase who just happens to be an 11 year old girl. The way he delivers the line is as a taunt to a psychopath, not a pervy come-on, so forget it.
The plot itself by overlooked B movie horror writer Tony Crechales (THE ATTIC, BLOOD MANIA) is so convoluted, twisted, and tightly wound that to try and explain any of it does the sum of it's parts a disservice, since they amount to far more than their whole. This is a great example of a movie that was better than it had to be, and one that will defy the expectations of even the most seasoned & jaded viewer. Many of whom like myself probably dismissed the film because of it's PG rating, but rest assured there are a couple of genuine howler moments -- plus a lot of somewhat sleazy little touches -- that would have assured an MPAA R rating if the film COULD have been made today. And I say it couldn't, certainly not with the ridiculous preoccupation with Political Correctness and formulaic screen writing that seems to embody contemporary film-making.
Nobody would have ever thought this movie was a good idea today, probably not even in 1974, which is of no surprise seeing who made it: William Grefe, a B movie maverick best known for such delightful cinematic trash cans as THE WILD REBELS, the snake horror epic STANLEY, and MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH, widely regarded as perhaps the original low- budget JAWS ripoff. Grefe was notorious for working outside of the Hollywood norm of his era and produced films of striking originality and breathtakingly bad taste, and IMPULSE might actually be his masterpiece for putting William Shatner in a pair of polyester slacks and a bright red muscle shirt, buying candy for his date and her psychotic 11 year old daughter the morning after the young tyke watched him murder someone. And he knows she saw.
To appreciate garbage like this you have to appreciate that not all art is necessarily meant to be in good taste, and that as MacLuhan points out, a culture's attributes are best represented by it's second rate artists. This is a cheap, somewhat scummy drive-in oriented grade B horror movie that just happens to feature William Shatner as it's lead psychopath. To conclude that it should amount to anything more than that is to miss the point of low budget drive-in oriented trash cinema. It wasn't meant to win Oscars or have cultural impact, it was meant to sell popcorn and hot dogs and soda pop, amuse it's audience for 80 odd minutes, and be forgotten by the time you get home. What makes IMPULSE special is that some of it is quite remarkable, and anybody who sees it will have a hard time shaking it from their memory just because of who William Shatner is.
Shatner's career was in a shambles in 1974 when IMPULSE was made, and the film is often cited as the point when he scraped the bottom. He was more or less broke and living off his second wife at the time, a then dishy young babe named Marcy Lafferty, whom he pulled his weight to get a bit part as the sexy hotel clerk. Desperate for the work he took this role as a risk and obviously poured his heart & soul into his interpretation as a psychotic spree killer ... and by golly he isn't completely convincing as a mommy-obsessed homicidal lunatic. Highly recommended, and impossible to dismiss.
7/10: Beware of the cheapo DVD release, it utilized a language censored television print. Too bad.
IMPULSE does not. It does not follow any standard of film-making that I can think of. It is completely unconventional in nature, highlighted by a low budget that forced those involved -- including Shatner -- to resort to their resourcefulness, guile, and wits. The result is a tightly wound little ball of paranoia who's inherent creepiness belies the usually benign PG rating. This truly is Captain Kirk as you have never seen him before, other than maybe that episode where he gets split into good and evil halves and starts goosing his busty Yeoman. As a matter of fact, cross that performance with the episode where a psychotic former lover switches bodies & consciousness with Kirk in an effort to take over the Enterprise, and you pretty much have Shatner's disturbing, unexpectedly effective performance as a deranged, psychotic grifter who targets wealthy single women with his sometime partner, Karate Pete, hilariously played in cameo by Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, minus his steel brimmed hat from GOLDFINGER.
Sure, it's only natural for critics of low budget potboiler films to point out the "depths" that the two stars had "sunk to" when accepting these roles, and indeed William Shatner has never hesitated to cringe, grimace, and snarl with disgust when asked about IMPULSE, which was at one point re-released with the obscenely suggestive title WANT A RIDE, LITTLE GIRL? Gnarly to be sure, but that's actually a line of dialog from the film and has nothing to do with what you might think: William Shatner does NOT play a pedophile, but at one point does indeed have to match wits with another little nutcase who just happens to be an 11 year old girl. The way he delivers the line is as a taunt to a psychopath, not a pervy come-on, so forget it.
The plot itself by overlooked B movie horror writer Tony Crechales (THE ATTIC, BLOOD MANIA) is so convoluted, twisted, and tightly wound that to try and explain any of it does the sum of it's parts a disservice, since they amount to far more than their whole. This is a great example of a movie that was better than it had to be, and one that will defy the expectations of even the most seasoned & jaded viewer. Many of whom like myself probably dismissed the film because of it's PG rating, but rest assured there are a couple of genuine howler moments -- plus a lot of somewhat sleazy little touches -- that would have assured an MPAA R rating if the film COULD have been made today. And I say it couldn't, certainly not with the ridiculous preoccupation with Political Correctness and formulaic screen writing that seems to embody contemporary film-making.
Nobody would have ever thought this movie was a good idea today, probably not even in 1974, which is of no surprise seeing who made it: William Grefe, a B movie maverick best known for such delightful cinematic trash cans as THE WILD REBELS, the snake horror epic STANLEY, and MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH, widely regarded as perhaps the original low- budget JAWS ripoff. Grefe was notorious for working outside of the Hollywood norm of his era and produced films of striking originality and breathtakingly bad taste, and IMPULSE might actually be his masterpiece for putting William Shatner in a pair of polyester slacks and a bright red muscle shirt, buying candy for his date and her psychotic 11 year old daughter the morning after the young tyke watched him murder someone. And he knows she saw.
To appreciate garbage like this you have to appreciate that not all art is necessarily meant to be in good taste, and that as MacLuhan points out, a culture's attributes are best represented by it's second rate artists. This is a cheap, somewhat scummy drive-in oriented grade B horror movie that just happens to feature William Shatner as it's lead psychopath. To conclude that it should amount to anything more than that is to miss the point of low budget drive-in oriented trash cinema. It wasn't meant to win Oscars or have cultural impact, it was meant to sell popcorn and hot dogs and soda pop, amuse it's audience for 80 odd minutes, and be forgotten by the time you get home. What makes IMPULSE special is that some of it is quite remarkable, and anybody who sees it will have a hard time shaking it from their memory just because of who William Shatner is.
Shatner's career was in a shambles in 1974 when IMPULSE was made, and the film is often cited as the point when he scraped the bottom. He was more or less broke and living off his second wife at the time, a then dishy young babe named Marcy Lafferty, whom he pulled his weight to get a bit part as the sexy hotel clerk. Desperate for the work he took this role as a risk and obviously poured his heart & soul into his interpretation as a psychotic spree killer ... and by golly he isn't completely convincing as a mommy-obsessed homicidal lunatic. Highly recommended, and impossible to dismiss.
7/10: Beware of the cheapo DVD release, it utilized a language censored television print. Too bad.