If Ed Wood had gone to film school he might have made this quirky howler. The graveyard scenes & omniscient narrator are standard Wood tropes. This short film is a mash up of Freudian psycho babble w/classic noir cinematography, graphic violence, overwrought acting & some nifty camera angles. There's even a reverse tracking shot through a window that Hitchcock would use in Psycho 5 yrs later. I'm not saying he stole it from this movie, but.... Throw in a severed hand, a jazz combo, and Orson Welles' double. If it really is Ed McMahon narrating, it's a bonus. That's Marni Nixon doing a 'theremin' yodel on the soundtrack! (Was she cheaper than a real theremin?) The "actors" look like an Ed Wood casting call of 'street people'; everyone looks garish & homely. Granted, some of the on-location night scenes shot in seedy, downtown wherever are so dark you can't see the action, but kudos for the effort. Too bad the print is pretty worn; there was some real artistic intent behind this deadpan attempt at horror. Worth seeing at least once, it's unique, nutty & fun.
