WICKED WICKED - 1973

WICKED WICKED - 1973

"Wicked Wicked That's The Ticket...You Gotta Make Me Feel So Wicked..." No those are not the lines from the musical "Wicked" but it's the theme song from the movie "Wicked Wicked". Why is it titled "Wicked" twice? Because this flick was done in "ANAMORPHIC DUOVISION" - Wow a whole new technology in film making! Basically it's all done in a split screen gimmick where you get to see 2 things happening at the same time, it the "AVATAR" of 1973!




This slasher movie takes place in the beautiful Coronado Hotel in Coronado Island, San Diego, where single women check in but they don't check out. So the hotel dick; Rick Stewart (David Bailey) is assigned to solve the mysterious disappearances. Turns out these women were brutally murdered and cut up by a serial killer wearing a monster mask and dressed as a waiter.

Randolph Roberts is Jason Gant the young peeping tom castodian of the hotel. Jason is very fond of a has been actress; Lenore Karadyne who's been living in the hotel fore over 20 years. As Jason connects with Lenore the split screen takes you back to Jason's childhood as a neglected abused child of a single mother, the gate way to a typical Norman Bates background.




This could've passed for one of William Castle's movie; a homicidal killer on the loose, graphic violence and a gimmick called "Duovision". The split screen really doesn't serve any purpose other than it made me feel dizzy watching 2 things happening at the same time. But it's fun to see this low budget slasher flick where the actors take themselves too seriously; all the women looked like Karen Black, a touch of '70's sex kitch; and the organ playing the music of "Phantom of the Opera" as background music.