While this is not by any stretch of the imagination a good film, because of the slow pacing, the inane police sequences, and the thuddinmg obviousness of much of it. It still has it's imaginative stretc hes. For example, showing that the killer has an orgasm every time he kills is unusual and quitye ahead of the time. Several of the strangling scenes where suspensilly paced, but weakened by how quickly the victim usually died (it only takes him about 10 seconds to strangle each woman with a silk stocking!) and also weakened by having every woman changer into her underwear before she gets killed. Basically much of this is saved by Victor Buono's performance which is not his best, is still quite menacing and one of the more realistic serial killers on film. His exaggerated false smiles of respectability brought to mind similiar ones I had seen on the faces of John Wayne Gacy. And the scene where he trashes the apart ment the hole time his mouth workingh inadvertenly was magnificent.
Review of The Strangler
