Pin: A Plastic Nightmare

CW: Sexual Trauma, Incest, Sexual Assault, Abortion

(This will be a fun one.)

Pin (1988) horror movie about inaccessibility, if one were to go by the poster.

It is actually about a boy who believes an anatomy doll is his imaginary friend. That sounds like a great premise. The poster is also great.

The official title is Pin: A Plastic Nightmare.

This is actually a really good movie. I know the claim "It's not a horror movie, it's a psychological thriller," is usually a way for people to justify watching a horror movie. Trust me, I don't feel guilty about watching dumb horror movie. Pin is an odd combination of a generic '80s horror movie and tense psychological thriller. If you are interested at all, watch it before reading this review, as it has some twists and my post will ruin them.

The ellipses are so tense, you could hear a Pin drop.

Four boys stare up at an old house with a man staring out the window. They wonder whether he is paralyzed, dead, or a dummy.

One boy decides that the best way to determine this is to climb up the side of house. He pulls back the window curtain and the man says "Get out"

So clearly, it is a real person.

Also, the boy calmly climbs down after this.

Fifteen years earlier, it was night time and there was a car parked in front of the house. That's about it.

Two impossibly perfect children eat lunch. Their impossibly perfect mother cleans up. They ask their father if they can go to bed.

He asks his daughter, Ursula, to count to ten for him. She does.

He asks his son, Leon, to count backwards from 100 by sevens.

Damn it, this is how the gender wage gap gets started.

He messes up 72 to 66. The father says that they will work on it.

The father is a doctor. A quirky doctor, who does a ventriliquism with a anatomy doll during check-ups. The doctor asks the doll whether he thinks the patient has a temperature.

Also, his kids watch. The father will probably regret this later on when he has to pay for the therapists.

The anatomy doll is named Pin (1998)

The doctors and Pin "argue" about whether Pin should get a coat. After a few rounds of the puppetry routine, the patient seems relieved to go get a blood test.

Given the Pin situation, I would be relieved as well.

The doctor and patient leave. Ursula and the son talk to Pin about the clothes..

Right then, the father comes back and stops in the doorway. He uses ventriloquism to make Pin tell his kids that the clothes idea is dumb.

Seriously, this is the sort of repressed memory that a psychologist will dig out of the kids years later...

His name is Frank

The kids leave, but Leon lags behind just long enough to hear Frank argue with Pin about the diagnosis.

At least patients don't have to pay extra for a second opinion.

In an odd transition, a shot of Leon's face fades to white and then cuts back to this house with ethereal as if it were a memory.

The mother yells at Leon because his friend tracked in dirt from outside. Then she slaps him.

Leon goes outside. Generic bullies yell at him and hit him with a ball.

Leon goes to talk to Frank, but he drives away.

I think the twist at the end of the movie will be that everyone else had a bet on who could make Leon snap into either Carrie (1976) or Pin (1988)

Leon goes to his father's office to talk to the anatomy doll. Definitely give your traumatized child the ability to access your office where the source of his trauma and a lot of confidential information reside.  He tells Pin that he has no other friends to talk to besides Ursula, but she's  a girl.

So the social order is

1.Male Humans
2. Male Dolls
3. Female Humans
4. Female Dolls

This is called the Pediorchy

Leon hides as a nurse comes in. He watches as, well...

When I started this blog, I assumed I was going to be watching some odd and disturbing scenes.

I would never have guess I was going to see a woman have sex with a anatomy doll.

Okay, she doesn't actually take her clothes off, but that doesn't make it any less disturbing.

I'm all for using anatomy dolls for sex education, but this is taking it a little too far.

AND HE SNAPS.

At Ursula's birthday party, she gets one present from her parents and one from Pin. Leon and Pin look around 13. It would be nice if the movie indicated the time more.

Leon excitedly asks to see what Pin got her. So much for the trauma of seeing a woman have sex with Pin.

Pin got Ursula a music box with a ballerina. That night, Leon stares at the music box while Ursula looks at  pre-internet pornographic magazine and questions when she will grow breasts.

This movie is more disturbing than the one last week with all the slit throats and strangling.

Nice job breaking gender stereotypes. The girl is looking at pictures of naked women and the boy is staring at a ballerina music box.

Ursula casually mentions that Pin is an office dummy. Leon attacks her and their mother comes in. She confiscates the magazine.

I joked about using Pin for sex education. but now Frank is actually using Pin for sex eduction.

Ursula looks behind her at her Frank. He knows that Ursula knows Pin isn't real, but they play along for Leon.

Pin tells Leon to take the towel off of his lap so that they can see his "male sexual apparatus."

Firstly, that's cisnormative.

Secondly, are you trying to sabotage your son's sexuality?

Leon and Ursula talk about how they are looking forwards to having sex. The first twenty minutes of this movie are more disturbing than every other movie I have reviewed. Combined.

Okay, maybe not.


Fade to white again. It's high-school.

So fading to white indicates a time skip.

This is definitely an accurate representation of a 1988 horror movie high school.

Leon walks around with this expression on his face

I can't imagine what kind of traumatic experiences made him that way.

Bullies graffiti his locker.

That's not nice. What did the owner of the other locker do?

Leon goes to the dance (that is going on in the school) and asks a girl named Marsha if she's seen Ursula.

Marsha says she say Ursula dancing with someone named Eddie and asks Leon wants to dance.

Leon declines because Marsha isn't  an anatomy doll.

Leon runs outside and sees a car rocking from side to side. Ursula and Eddie are having sex inside.

This gives Leon justification to drag Eddie out and beat him up for not being an anatomy doll.

Leon angrily asks whether Ursula has engaged in intercourse with the entire football team.

Definitely a 80's horror movie high school.

He tells her that if she ever has sex with another guy, he will stop being her brother.

...that sounds like a win-win situation for her.

In their backyard, Ursula walks past their parents and sits down next to Leon reading a book. This is the actual dialogue in this scene:

Ursula: Hi

Leon: Hey. This calculus is killing me.

Ursula: I think i'm pregnant.

If she had seen the Pin sex scene, she wouldn't have had this problem.

Leon says that Ursula can't go to the doctor without them notifying their father because Ursula is 15.

Pictured: An actual 15 year-old girl.

15 in 80's horror movie years is about 26, by the way.

Leon tells Ursula to just go ask Pin. Ursula almost tells Leon that Pin isn't real, but stops herself. She just tells him that Pin won't talk without their father there.

This brings up a question. Does Frank still do the ventriloquism routine while Leon is in high-school? If not, has Pin not talked since they were kids?

Actually, Pin does talk! Kind of. Leon uses ventriloquism to make Pin say that they should tell their father.

Ursula understandably freaks out and runs outside.

I guess they told their father, because now Ursula and Leon sit in the office. Frank says he will examine Ursula and chastises Leon for not wanting to "stay and observe."

Clearly, Leon's sexuality isn't confused enough for his father.

At a half-hour in, this movie is great. It's really creepy and subdued. Still waiting for the promised wheelchair on the poster.


Frank forces Leon to fill out some college applications before leaving for a speech with their mother. Halfway there, he realizes he left medical histories in his office and goes back to find Leon talking to Pin.

"Gee son, I thought traumatizing you and teaching you lesson through an anatomy wouldn't have an negative ramifications. Guess I was wrong."

Frank tells Leon to go home and confiscates Pin. He tells their mother that he need him for a "visual aid" and will leave Pin at the university

Most emotional movie moment
 involving an anatomy doll.

Frank drives while the mother nervously glances behind her at Pin. Pin is covered in a sheet.

A sudden curve in the road causes the sheet to fall off. Franks keeps glancing at Pin's  reflection.

Then he crashes, the car flips over, and the parents die.

They were Pinned against their seats.

The police bring Ursula and Leon to the crash site. Leon is relived that the anatomy doll is safe, as he was waiting on Pins and needles.

Leon and Ursula go back to their house, Their aunt promises to move in with them by next week.

They rip the plastic off the furniture, and order pizza for dinner. everything worked out fine for them in the end!

The cans intrigued me so much that I looked up Diet Pepsi cans from 1988.

 I wonder whether Pepsi paid them or if they just used the cans and Pepsi didn't care about this obscure horror movie about an anatomy doll. One would think that, if it was product placement, they would make the labels more prominent.

Speaking of the anatomy doll, Ursula wakes up the the sound of a music box. She sneaks into her brothers room and sees Pin sitting in a chair. Dressed in a suit.

She is surprised, but shouldn't. There's over an hour of movie left!

Ursula says that Aunt Dorothy won't like Pin being their. Leon tells Ursula that Pin is family, be he will store Pin in the attic. Also, Aunt Dorothy probably won't be there for long.

Ursula decides the best way to approach this situation is to go to the library and read some books on schizophrenia.

Remember, this is before WedMD.

Boy, I started this movie because their was someone in a wheelchair on the cover. There's no wheelchair so far, but there is a disability anyway.

Ursula sees a Help Wanted sign in the library

Next week, Aunt Dorothy comes in an immediately tells Leon to put the covers back on the furniture. God damn it, Leon.

At dinner, Leon says that he stored the plastic covers in the attic but the door is locked. Aunt Dorothy says she will call the locksmith.

Ursula says that she got the job at the library. Leon asks why she applied when she doesn't need the money. Aunt Dorothy replies that it is good for mental health. Not too subtle. Leon leaves.

Leon goes to the attic. Pin says...

From now on, I will use "Pin says" as shorthand for "Leon makes Pin say."

Pin says that Aunt Dorothy is changing Ursula and advises Leon to get rid of her.

That night, a voice whispers "Dorothy" creepily. Aunt Dorothy wakes up, rolls over, and sees Pin next to her. Pin sits up.

Dorothy screams and tries to leave, but the door is locked. She has a heart attack.

Leon stands up from behind the bed.

So...

Leon snuck into Aunt Dorothy's room while she was asleep, put pin next to her, and lay down without her waking up?

I can buy that.

With Aunt Dorothy gone, Leon bring Pin back down. Ursula watches.

The next...

Sometime in the future, (This movie has a hard time indicating passage of time) Ursula comes home to Pin wearing their father's clothes and a mask.

Leon tells Ursula that he wants to be a writer. Ursula snaps that she has a problem with It (2017), pointing at Pin.

Ursula runs upstairs to her room. Leon follows and yells at her. He tells her to either apologize to Pin or leave the house. She decides to apologize.

Another transition to an indeterminite point in the future. Ursula works in the library and a guy named Stan hits on her.

Ursula tells Leon this and Leon replies that Ursula is a "beautiful young woman."

I want to say that this moment is the point where Ursula should seek medical help, but she should have done a long time ago.

And getting the book on schizophrenia doesn't help.

Stan and Ursula start dating. Ursula says that she is going out to dinner and a movie with Stan,  to Leon's creepy dismay.

When she comes home from the date, Leon is angry that she wasn't on a date with her brother got back so late. He tells her not to see him again. Ursula snaps back.

Later, Leon calls Marsha to make a date for Saturday. That girl from near the beginning of the movie.

Pin tells Leon that he is just jealous of Ursula and this movie spiraled into some passive-agressive incestuous revenge plot. I love it.

Leon and Marsha go to the movies. Leon is bored and Marsha...

I hate it when person next to me chews loudly!

Ursula gives Stan a watch that beeps every hour. That may or may not be important later.


Marsha and Leon move to their room to have sex. Marsha undresses, but Leon doesn't, because Pin could come in.

He tells Marsha that Pin is a friend who is staying with them.

Leon decides not to have sex with Marsha because she is not an anatomy doll. He leaves.


Marsha walks downstairs and calls out for Leon to give her her jacket. She wanders around in the dark.

This scene looks like a typical horror movie scene, but it is very effective because there has been an hour of subdued build-up.

Marsha picks up her jacket and puts it on. Pin appears out of the darkness

Hello, Marsha.

I mean

Hello, Marsha

Pin chases Marsha...somehow. There's a motor. Marsha runs to the door and Ursula comes in. She yells at Leon, who is controlling an electric wheelchair with Pin in it.

This is the first movie I've reviewed where the doll has the disability.

In the morning, Ursula decides to get some psychiatric help for Leon.

That's what would happen if she were smart. Instead, she agrees to invite Stan over to meet Pin. Obviously.

Stan comes over with a box of chocolates for Ursula. Instead, Leon grabs them because "Pin loves chocolates".

Leon tells Ursula to go check on the rice while he goes up to introduce Stan to Pin.

Ursula had warned Stan about Pin, but he is still uncomfortable at the meeting. Pin says he likes the chocolates.

Pin is not at the dinner, which makes Leon unhappy.  Stan brings up Leon's poetry and asks to hear some of it after dinner.

Stan's watch beeps. This may or may not be important.

The poetry reading turns out to be a bad idea. Stan, Ursula, and Pin listen as Leon reads his epic poem about a "modern day Beowulf out to gain immortality by creating as much progeny as he can."

Poem

Closer she came to him,

Moving, it seemed, in silent motion 

"Moving in silent motion" is probably the greatest line in any movie I've reviewed thus far.

His heart beat steadily within the caverns of his bosom

Driving hot, thick blood down,

 Down into the depths of his loins

He lunged from the deepest, darkest

Passions in us all

She turned without a sound and faced him

He stopped abruptly 

It was if a knife had performed an instant castration

Yeah, work on your analogies.

He was looking to the eyes

of his sister

"Seriously, Leon? That didn't even rhyme!"

"I don't want to assume anything,
 but this feels like a red flag."

Leon excitedly rolls Pin into his room, claiming that Stan liked his poetry.

So...he carried the chair up the stairs by himself?

Leon goes downstairs and overhears Stan telling Ursula that he needs psychiatric help.

THANK YOU.

Stan worries about the whole "writing poetry about raping his sister" thing. Ursula tells him to wait 23 years and see how popular Game of Thrones will become.

Leon runs back upstairs.

Ursula has diagnosed Leon with paranoid schizophrenia, but she refuses to report it.

Pin tells Leon that he must get rid of Stan.

"Cut" to Leon practicing chopping up firewood.

There are about 25 minutes left in this 1:42:33 movie and no murders so far. But it's really good and creepy. I hope that when if Leon murders Stan , it won't ruin the atmosphere,

Ursula thanks Leon for being nice to Stan and it's important that they like each other. Leon hypothetically what would happen if he didn't like Stan. While angrily chopping firewood.

Ursula sees no problem with this.

Leon calls Stan asking if he can come over in an hour to help with Ursula's surprise birthday party.

Leon poisons some Scotch and sits down with Stan and Pin. So this isn't going to turn into The Shining.

At work, the librarian allows Ursula to leave early because she is distracted.

During the cut to the library, Stan drank the scotch. The movie could have made that clearer. Leon tells Stan that he and Pin care about Ursula. Stan starts drowsing off. Leon thinks he was plotting to put him in a mental institution

Stan collapses. Pin tells Leon to get Stan. Leon uses a horse statue to kill Stan.

Apparently Leon didn't give the medicine enough to time to kill Stan.

Pin starts talking to Leon, telling him to hide the body in the river and clean up the blood.

Unfortunately, Ursula calls to to tell him that she is coming home early.

Pin uses flexible thinking to reach a solution. Put the body underneath the woodpile,drive Stan's car away, and clean up the blood.

Ursula comes home. Leon tells her that Stan's friend got sick and he had to leave to see him and couldn't have Ursula for...some reason

Leon has made  a lot of food in the meantime. He ominously points at the dishes with a knife.

Leon and Ursula sit down to have pot roast, but Ursula is worried. Leon uses the following logic:

If you trust him, you shouldn't worry about him.

Leon casually mentions that their dad would turn over in his grave if he knew they were drinking wine.

Ursula snaps and tells him that life was better when their parents were alive because, among other things, "the food tasted good"

Leon asks if Ursula wants to here the new stanza in his poem.

She doesn't seem to react negatively to this suggestion. The poem about the incestuous rape.

Ursula checks on the fire when...

She hears Stan's watch beep.

I hate to admit it, but I didn't  see that coming when they set the watch up twice.

Ursula looks around for Stan as Pin sits creepily. She finds the watch and broken mantle under the couch.

Hold up.

Leon cleaned up the entire area of blood but missed the mantle and watch?

Ursula confronts Leon. Leon Pins the blame on the doll

Ursula runs away. Leon asks why Pin didn't lie for him.

"I don't know how [to lie] and neither do you and that's why you do it so badly"

Ursula comes back and has a brief Shining moment.

Later, the police uncover the body bag from under the logs. Ursula sits in the car. Somehow, stan is alive.

So far I have loved this movie and there are only three minutes left. Ready for the obligitory twist?

Ursula goes upstairs and talks to someone in a wheelchair staring out the window. She calls him Pin. Pin says he misses Leon.

Ursula: So do I.

Final shot

That ties back to the opening.

This twist is kind of unfair. Ursula clearly swung the ax at Leon. Apparently, at the last second, she changed direction and smashed Pin instead, I guess. And then the trauma of seeing Pin destroyed made Leon take on his personality permanently.

She clearly hit Leon!

I used to think that abstinence-only sex education was ineffective because teenagers will have sex even if you tell them not to.

But if you replace the current curriculum with just showing the Pin and woman sex scene to eighth-graders, it will put them off sex for a while.

Also, the conservative parents won't have a problem with this, as Pin identifies as male and the woman as female.

Seriously, I loved this movie. It's slow but it builds to an actually creepy atmosphere. The incestuous hints make it more disturbing. I was hoping to do a bad horror film for Halloween, but I ended up doing a great one.

I wonder if Hitchcock saw this movie before he made Psycho (1960)

Death Carries A Cane

Death Carries A Cane is a 1973 Italian giallo film

Giallo is an Italian exploitation murder mystery genre with elements of other genres. Thanks, Wikipedia.

It is now the best title of anything I have covered thus far. I was worried that the cane would be metaphorical, but it is not.

I'm glad I saw the cane title instead of these alternate titles:

Dance Steps on the Edge of a Razor
The Tormentor
Maniac at Large
The Night of the Rolling Heads
Devil Blade.

Otherwise, I might have missed it!


It starts with POV shot through a coin-operated telescope across an italian town

He was an actor before Game of Thrones

Two men fight over the binoculars. They spot a woman bending over with a view up her skirt.

Definitely an exploitation movie.

A woman takes some photographs of tourists. One of them informs us that her name is Kitty. Of course it is. He tells Kitty that they have to find Alberto to catch a plane.

Kitty looks through the telescope to find Alberto's balcony and sees a man stabbing a naked woman through a window.

Hitchcock totally ripped off this movie!

Also, who commits murder with the window blinds open?

More importantly, that's an extremely creepy way to find Alberto.

Most importantly, it took a whole four minutes and fourteen seconds for this exploitation movie to get to the first naked woman.

Right before the man turns around, the telescope expires. Of course it does. Kitty puts another coin in and the man has disappeared. She sees the house number is 57.

Kitty tells an officer that a woman was murdered. The officer says he can't do anything because he is a fireman. Social commentary?

Alberto pulls up to a curb. Kitty tells him that she saw a women being murdered. Alberto mansplains

Alberto: Are you really sure, honey?

Alberto and Kitty drive the man and woman to the airport. Afterwards, they drive to the police station. Alberto asks some more questions about the murder and mansplains again

Alberto: Yeah, but, are you sure?

So, after seeing the woman being murdered, Kitty asks an officer in the vicinity, who tells her to go to the police. Instead of going to the police there, she goes home, which requires driving on the highway, and then drives back. Why?

Kitty talks to the inspector. The inspector condescendingly asks her whether the woman was strangled or knifed.

Kitty and Alberto drop off some photographs of a decapitated mannequinn to a director. okay.

Cut to the director and a blonde woman having sex.

It took this exploitation movie over nine minutes to get to a sex scene.

The man has to give up because he is too stressed about the show.

This is a medical condition known as directional dysfunction

The phone rings.The woman picks up. It's Kitty. Kitty asks Lydia (the blonde woman) if she has heard about the murder. Lydia says she has heard about another one, but not this one.

Lydia runs a newspaper. Kitty tells her the story so she can print it.

At some point in the future (this movie doesn't indicate passage of time well), Kitty looks through the newspaper for the murder story and finds nothing. If this movie doesn't explain this by the end, I'll be angry.

Note the  J&B whiskey bottle

Apparently, J&B whiskey bottles are in many giallo movies.

The doorbell rings. The inspector steps inside, and then asks if he can go inside.  Well...

On the terrace, a hilarious situation doesn't play out. The murder inspectors walks in on Alberto stabbing a dummy. I honestly don't know how the movie failed to make this funny.

The inspector confirms that they did indeed find the corpse of a women. Kitty says that the killer was dressed in black. Of course he was.

She points the dummy to indicate to the inspector what a black hat looks like.

POV shot of the killer opening a box of weapons. He takes a razor and slices a piece of paper. Not the paper!

CONFIRMATION: This movie has a disabled character in it.

The killer approaches a house with a man eating in the kitchen. He uses his cane to knock on the door. Adaptation!

The man opens the door but nobody is outside. I hope there is a reason for this beyond trying to create suspense.

He goes back inside and closes the door. Another knock. Suspense

Remember when I made a reference to Hitchcock? I regret that now.

The man goes the window, opens it, and sees nothing. He turns away and the killer uses his cane to grab the neck.  Adaptive murder!

He slits the man's throat with a razor. The gore effect is pretty good.

The police investigate the corpse. One of them makes the observation that the body with a slit throat was killed witha razor.

Lydi arrives and interrogates an investigator, claiming that three murders were connected and that it is probably a sex maniac.

She is clearly aware that she is in a giallo movie.

A forensic scientist named Lenny inspects blood stains on the three murders and deduces that all three murders were performed by the same person who had  a bad leg and used a cane.

My physical therapist once told me that walking with a bad gait could hurt me. I didn't know she was talking about murder accusations.

The moral is: "If you commit a murder, don't get the bottom of your cane wet with blood'"

The detective requests

"a file of all deviants and sex offenders with leg disabilities"

Clearly a commentary on the way the justice system disproportionately treats disabled people unfairly.

Before this movie can offer any more valuable social commentary, the killer sneaks in, pulls the covers back on a sleeping naked woman, and takes her picture.

Wait, it's not the killer. It's the inspector. Good twist.

Seriously,good twist. And I don't think the inspector is the killer, because of the whole cane thing.

The inspector is angry because Lydia ran the story connecting the murders.

He wants the government to revoke the newspapers license.

No Trump jokes.

Cut to another sex scene. Of course. Between Kitty and...a man who I don't recognize. The camera lingers on Kitty.

Incidentally, Death Carries A Cane was directed by a man. Maurizio Pradeaux.

The inspector calls in Alberto, tells him the murderer had a leg injury, and asks why he was limping last week.

Alberto stumbles over some lame excuse about spraining his ankle and wonders whether the detective is pulling his leg about the murder case.

I mean, this is commentary about the justice system.

The detective shows Alberto a photograph of him and the murder victim at an art show. Alberto is horrified that the detective would insinuate that he would take a girl to an art show.

She looks just as blonde and thin as most other women in the movie.

Alberto tells Kitty that he was questioned about being the murderer. Kitty laughs.

That night, she pictures the man killing the woman in the window and Alberto stabbing the dummy.

It goes like this:

1. A man stabbed a woman with a knife
2. The man knew how to use a knife to stab a body
3. A dummy is an approximation of a body
4. Alberto knows how to use a knife to stab the dummy
5. Therefore, Alberto knows how to use a knife to stab a woman
6. Alberto is guilty. QED

Kitty tries to leave, but Alberto wakes up and makes her stay. Then they have sex. Of course they do.

Marta, the cleaning lady for the murder victim. calls alberto and says that she knows who killed Marta. We don't see her face, so we know she is mysterious.

Alberto goes over to her house and she is just an old lady.

 Disappointing. However, Marta tells me that the man that the murderer killed in his kitchen was the chestnut vendor who saw the first murder. Glad that scene had a point. Marta offers to tell Alberto who the killer is in exchange for $2000.

In a confusing exchange, Alberto says he doesn't have the money. Marta tells him that he will get a lot of money for telling the newspapers the name of the killer. But she still wants the money before telling him. How does that work?

Alberto says he'll get the money by tommorrow.

Marta walks upstairs with a candle and a knife. Not sure why, but it sure fulfills the promised "horror" genre.

A cat jumpscares her.

When Marta reaches the top of the stairs, the man with the cane slits her throat.


On the bright side, Alberto doesn't have to come up with $2000 anymore!

Alberto had been taping the conversation between him and Marta. He plays the tape back to the detective to prove that he wasn't the killer.

Coincidentally, right after the tape plays, the detective gets a call to inform him that Marta was killed. This movie sure doesn't waste time.

A cobbler agrees to mend a show for a blonde (of course) woman. End scene.

There is a cane in the background. And the shoe is warped. And there is no other point to this scene. From this, we can deduce that he is not the killer.

A black-haired(!) fully-clothed(!) woman dances in front of Alberto, Lydia,and Marco as they film. She takes her top off. Right.

She takes her skirt off. Right. It's been almost ten minutes since the last semi-nude scene. I was losing interest in the movie.

Lydia's sister Sylvia calls. No, she hasn't been in the movie yet. Sylvia disapproves of Marco because he films strippers. Okay. She invites Lydia to dinner, but Lydia declines.

This had better be relevant.

The inspector and Alberto meet up. The inspector apologizes because the whole thing with the photo was just a trick to see his reaction. Also, the inspector has men following Alberto. Because the killer is also following Alberto. I'm confused.

Also, the inspector says that the killer got another girl. They know it was the same person because he used the same technique. Slashing throats is apparently unique to this killer.

A nameless woman walks into her apartment. In a shocking departure, she is fully dressed and has black hair.

The killer is under her bed. He waits for her to undress. Of course. Although the camera never shows her naked body. This movie is classier than that.

I'm sure this sounded erotic on paper

The killer suffocates the woman with her pillow. Then he slices her body. Overkill?

Lydia strips as Marco plays the piano. Then they have sex. Again.

Look, I'm not inherently against movies objectifying women, but it keeps interrupting the plot!

The inspector tells Alberto in the worst way possible. that they are going to use Kitty to lure the killer. I paraphrased it:

Inspector: We chose a girl to use to bait the killer. It's Kitty because the killer will know that she is your girlfriend. It won't be dangerous. She won't mind, will she?

Except it sounds worse in the movie.

The killer cuts out a picture of a bag with a certain design on it from the newspaper. In a clever edit, the next shot is of Kitty dressed as a prostitute carrying a bag with that same design. The inspector and Alberto wait in a car nearby.

So I guess somehow they got Lydia to run the newspaper ad so that they could lure the killer to Kitty carrying the same bag as in the ad? Am I missing something?

Anyway, the killer arrives. The cane drops. Kitty gets into his car and the police ambush him.

Oops, it's actually the police chief. Who happened to also use a cane. This is very contrived. The chief tells Alberto to have "the money" on his desk by tomorrow. What money? The $2000 for revealing the name of the killer? Which he doesn't know?

At this point, we learn that the bag is the same one that the lady buying chestnuts used at the scene of the crime. No, that doesn't make sense. Yes, it is in the movie.

Just trying to describe the plot of this movie is so difficult I am having trouble making jokes.

I stopped the movie and went to bed. The next day, I had it figured out. I could have been thinking about something productive, but instead I was trying to work through the plotline of Death Carries A Cane.

The chestnut girl was carrying the bag. She dropped it when she ran away. The police took it in as evidence. They couldn't find the owner, so they just kept it. Then the inspector had the idea to use it to lure the killer whey figured out he was killing witnesses. They change the story so that Kitty was the one carrying it.

I have no idea whether that's true, but at least it makes sense. As much sense as any of the other twists in this movie. If I hadn't admitted that I just made that up, you probably wouldn't have questioned it.

This is the first movie I've covered that actually made me angry. And it has nothing to do with the disability representation. Exploitation movies shouldn't require me to take a night just to understand.

A man comes into Lydia's office and asks whether she wrote the story about the killer. His name is Emmanuel, and he made the bag that Kitty used to lure the killer. And that the girl bought chestnuts had. In my version.

He wants to capitalize on the connection between his bag and the murders with the funniest line in the movie.

"Put Emmanuel's on and you'll be a lady killer."

Emmanuel casually mentions that he has only made one of those bag and knows who bought it. Lydia gets her name. Very convinient. I don't think there's any plot twist that could surprise me at this point.

Lydia walks out as Emmanuel suggests another idea

"We photograph the bag with the bodies. We photograph the two of them together, it's fabulous, it can't miss!"

Someone should remake this movie and set it in Current Year tm. Just imagine the hashtags.

The chestnut girl comes over to Lydia's place. I got extremely confused because she looks a lot like Kitty.

I thought it was Kitty at first but that made no sense. Less sense than before.

The chestnut girl glances at a photo. Her eyes go wide and she runs away

It's not that bad of a picture.

Seriously, she identifies the guy with light hair as the killer. Just go with it.

Aren't whodonnit stories so satisfying when the killer is someone who was never established?

Chestnut Girl drives away to a phone and calls the police, claiming she knows who the killer is.

But she doesn't tell him who it is. she is just upset because that means that the killer will kill her now. She hangs up and goes back into her car and drives away. That was a waste of the police's time.

Also a waste of her time, as the killer is somehow in the backseat.

How did he know that she figured out who he was and find her so quickly?

If he has some sort of supernatural foresight ability... that would be one of the more believable twists in this movie.

Somehow, just by strangling her with his cane, blood splatters from her neck all the way to the windshield. THEN he cuts her neck open.

He wants to remain inconspicuous, right? So he kills Chestnut Girl while she's driving on a busy road. How does he get out of the car without people noticing? Will he have to go kill all of the other drivers? 24 minutes left.

As per usual, the graphic violence is followed by a nude scene. One thing about this movie isn't predictable!

Alberto sketches Kitty's nude body. Kitty says she wants to be a singer and asks Alberto to listen to a tape she made. Alberto complains that they have enough to worry about.

Kitty: You can't continue to be interested in cripples and crimes, you know. Life must go on.

Screenwriter: Did you notice the alliteration?

Yeah, he should just move past the serial killer who is still at large.

Kitty can't find the cassette player. Alberto says it's in the kitchen. Turns out that Alberto used the same tape to record his conversation with Marta, just on a different track. It took me too long to figure that out, and I remember cassette players!

Conveniently, Alberto accidentally presses the button that replays his conversation with Marta.

Marta (recording): [the newspapers] will be dancing just as pretty as the girls did and you won't have any trouble getting it young man, I can tell you.

From this, he figures out that all three victims were dancers at the same school.

...are they implying that the killer's motive is that he's upset that other people can dance and he can't?

That is simultaneously brilliant and really, really dumb.

He never listens to Kitty's performance.

Alberto calls Lydia and asks whether the MacDonald girl went to a dance academy. Lydia tells him the name of the academy. Then she calls Sylvia.

Sylvia apparently went to the same dance academy. Conveniently. Lydia asks whether she knew the MacDonald girl. Sylvia snaps that she doesn't want to talk about the school and hangs up. Lydia has a flashback to Sylvia using a cane back at school when she hurt her leg.

Did the movie ever establish that the killer was male? Does Lydia know that? I really don't care at this point.

Now the implication is that Sylvia hurt her leg at the dance academy and went back to kill all of her classmates because she was jealous that she had to leave.

That is simultaneously even more brilliant and really, really, really dumb.

Alberto and Kitty go to the dancing academy and ask about the Martinez girl. The head tells them that she never head of her. Alberto and Kitty leave.  The killer approaches the school

A woman named Mrs. Exposition hops in the backseat. She tells Alberto and Kitty that she is the secretary and was Martinez's best friend at school.

C-O-N-V-I-N-I-E-N-T-L-Y

The blond guy approaches a shop window and looks at the razors.

The camera never shows whether he uses a cane. If he is not the killer, the movie better have a really good excuse for this scene.

Lydia calls the police because she never saw the chestnut girl.

Kitty, the secretary, and Alberto sneak into the school. I had trouble figuring out whether it was the secretary because all the women look similar and the picture quality is really poor.

Alberto asks the secretary why she is helping them. The secretary replies that she and the Martinez girl were "more than just friends"

This development is significant because it justifies a ten second lesbian sex flashback.

Not that any of the other sex scenes had justification

Kitty says she has to go to the bathroom and leaves. In any other slasher-esque movie, I would say that she will die soon. This movie has so many pointless diversions, I doubt it.

Alberto and the secretary pick up some binders full of photos and flip through them. The killer approaches.

Alberto is definitely going to find a reveal in that binder. But will the killer get him first? So suspenseful.

He doesn't find a reveal. Alberto and the secretary bring the binder to kitty and tell her to flip through it and take pictures of each page. Taking pictures of pictures. such a thrilling climax! Meanwhile, Alberto and the secretary go upstairs to find more records.

the killer looks at kitty. Kitty stops on one page and says, out loud

 "But it's impossible. It just can't be. But it might. because..."

The killer turns out the light at this. He approaches Kitty with a flashlight. Kitty thinks he is Alberto, letting him strangle her. But she somehow gets away. Because she is a main character.

Kitty runs outside to a greenhouse and bars the doors.

...the killer is above breaking glass?

Alberto runs downstairs and can't find Kitty. The killer starts to slowly break the glass.

I have mixed feelings about  this.

It's a clever way to reveal the killer bit by bit.

Kitty should have realized that glass is breakable

Right before the killer's face is shown,the movie cuts to Alberto and the secretary looking around for a few seconds.

There are four minutes left in the movie

The killer approaches. His face is hidden. He extends his cane towards kitty's neck.

Three minutes left.

It would be hilarious if the movie ended without revealing the killer

Kitty scrambles away, but he gets her neck.

The detective shoots the killer in the back. He came out of nowhere.

At 1:22:36 of this 1:25:18 movie, the killer is revealed as...Marco.

Okay. Whatever.

Who was Marco again?

Right. The director.That makes sense. When the Chestnut Girl picked up the photo and saw the killer, the audience thought it was the blonde guy. But it was actually Marco.

This is the one of the few times I can honestly use the phrase "That makes sense," in reference to this movie.

It doesn't explain the blonde guy, though.

Lydia walks in and is understandably upset. She says she didn't know.

The detective says that Marco just pretended to be lame to throw the police off.

So...this movie doesn't have a disability in it. I wasted a lot of time for nothing.

The final couple minutes is Lydia playing the role of the psychiatrist in Psycho:

Marco had a fear of failure, so he killed successful dancers. He also faked impotence for...some reason.

The End!

As Roger Ebert once wrote: "Sometimes a movie comes along with a title so perfect you're afraid to see it because that might spoil everything."

Death Carries A Cane starts out strong but falters halfway through. There is too much gratuitous plot that interferes with the sex scenes.