14 December 2024
Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974)
99 min.
Directed by Laurence Harvey.
With Laurence Harvey, Meg Foster, Joanna Pettet, John Ireland, Stuart Whitman, Gloria LeRoy, David Macklin, Jesse Vint.
Robbin Stanley (Foster) is a young hitchhiker thumbing her way along the California coastline.

She stops at Arrow Beach for a little break, and there by chance, she meets amiable photographer Jason Henry (Harvey).

He invites Robbin up to his beachside home for the night. But this is one free ride Robbin should have refused.

Because Mr. Henry is a very disturbed man.

A Korean War vet mentally scarred by the atrocities he saw during service, Jason now kidnaps young women off the beach, kills them...and then feeds off their flesh.

This gruesome low budget endeavor is a sort of grand guignol variation on Bob Clark's Deathdream (1972).

Harvey is always an interesting actor to watch (1959's Room at the Top) and here's no exception, as he delivers a good performance as the subdued Jason.

(This is also Harvey's directorial debut, but unfortunately, this would be his last film).

Kudos to Joanna Pettet as Jason's sympathetic sister and also to the bubbly Gloria LeRoy for their solid supporting work.

Indeed, the latter nearly steals the show as Arrow Beach's local hooker Ginger Tucker - an aging Betty Grable pinup type - who meets a grisly death at the end of Henry's razor-sharp meat cleaver.

Best scene: Meg Foster is woken up by some weird thumping sounds coming from somewhere in the house...Too nosy for her own good, she discovers Jason doin' a little meat tenderizin' in the basement.

Also known as Tender Flesh.

© copyright 1998-present | The Terror Trap; www.terrortrap.com | all rights reserved