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Memorable, crazy movie

Just what I expected

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Violated (1953) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Greenwich Village comes under attack by a psycho who is stalking women. Not only is he killing them but he's also scalping them. The lead investigator (Mitchell Kowall) teams up with a psychiatrist (Jason Niles) as they try to determine the killer who might just be a released sex offender.For 1953, VIOLATED is pretty hot stuff from start to finish. This is basically an exploitation film that mixes horror and film noir elements and the end result is fairly entertaining even if there are many flaws with the picture. If you're familiar with the 1980 slasher MANIAC you'll know that the lead character there scalped his victims. That film was heavily influenced by the 1966 film AROUSED. Well, I think it's safe to say that MANIAC also borrowed from this picture.The first thing you'll notice about this picture is that fact that it's working on a very small budget. I know noirs made a name for themselves by having small budgets but this here is a lot lower than you'd typically expect. What really sets the film apart isn't its story so much but the fact that it's willing to push the boundaries of good taste. After all, this here was seven years before PSYCHO and you've got a sex maniac, a psycho stalking women and a burlesque subplot where there are plenty of ladies not wearing too many clothes.Those exploitation elements is what keeps the film alive and moving throughout its short 67-minute running time. The performances are very hit and miss and the majority of them would be called amateurish to say the least. The lack of any real acting talent makes for a documentary like feel and the music score by Tony Mottola really adds a lot of sleaze. VIOLATED is a film that should probably be better known than it is.

"Violated" is a film about a homicidal photographer. Wait a minute, this description also fits to "Peeping Tom". Yes, there are many similarities - but also many dissimilarities - between those films.The similarities: Both perpetrators have a strenuous relationship with women. The crimes in both cases are caused by unpleasant childhood memories.Mark in "Peeping Tom" was used as a guinea pig for his father's psychological experiments on fear and the nervous system. Jan in "Violated" discovered that his mother's lover stroke her long hair, which triggered both his hatred of women and hair fetishism. He cuts off the hair of his victims after he killed them.The dissimilarities: "Peeping Tom" had the advantage of being made on a large budget with high-classed actors by one of Great Britain's most reputable directors, Michael Powell. The film was shot in Eastmancolor."Violated" was made on a shoestring budget by Walter Strate, his only feature film. Some of the actors were amateurs and they only appeared in this film. To be honest, most of the acting (also by the few professional actors) is quite unskillful. A reviewer on IMDb.com has, however, claimed that this adds more realism to the film. It was shot in gritty black and white on location in New York City.Mark in "Peeping Tom" incorporated his work as a photographer in the murders. Jan in "Violated" doesn't do that, although he kills a couple of his models.Mark is a handsome guy in his twenties, while Jan is an unattractive man in his forties.It is a matter of personal taste if you label this film as a noir or not. I think that Tony Mottolas moody guitar-playing expresses the loneliness and hardships of New York City's unfortunate residents, giving the film a touch of noir at least in the soundtrack.

This is a super-cheap picture from Panther Productions. You'll notice how cheap it looks right away and has a definite homemade quality to it--with some choppy edits, lots of unknown actors, cheap music and amateurish lighting and camera-work. This does not mean it's necessarily a bad picture...but certainly one that lacks polish and looks pretty crappy. But, for an exploitation film from this era, this isn't at all unusual.The story begins with a pretty young lady being murdered and scalped! The film actually shows very, very little when it comes to this. Throughout the story, more ladies are being murdered the same way and apparently they have a connection to a photographer. Much of the film follows him and his infatuation with a stripper who is stringing him along--the rest of the film consists of the police trying to put the pieces to the puzzle together to solve the crimes.Overall, this is a film that looks cheap and terrible but STILL is interesting if you like exploitation flicks. To be this sort of person, you really have to look past the shabbiness of the production...and it is shabby. No real flashes of brilliance here otherwise...just a rather gritty and strange tale that seems way ahead of its time. Worth seeing...for the right sort of viewer. Being a lover of film noir would help....though this one is so poorly done I don't think most folks would consider it noir.

***SPOILERS***Filmed on location in, where most of the places in the movie are no longer in existence, 1953 New York City the movie "Violated" is about a serial killer the mad photographer Jan C. Verbig, William Holland, who targets young women for their hair not bodies that he clips off after murdering them. It's a faddish that Verbig developed in childhood when he caught his mom with another man in bed stroking her long blond hair! Taking time off from his job developing as well as snapping pictures at "Earnie's" a strip club in the Manhattan red light district Verbig becomes infatuated with stripper Lii Demar, Lili Dawn, and tries to make it with her at all cost. Even going so far as blowing his identity as the "Hair-Cut" serial murderer who's already murdered and shaved or clipped off the hair some half dozen young women. While targeting Lili the deranged lunatic also has his eye on young blond and pretty Susan Grant, Vicki Carlson, whom he promised to break into the world of fashion photography as a fashion model!It's when Lili rejects Verbig's clumsy advances toward her that he goes completely berserk and strangles her only to blow his cover in being identified by those at "Earnies"" where Lili works as a stripper as the last person seen with her alive before she was found murdered! Bearly escaping from a police manhunt Verbig as mad as ever and forming from the mouth as a rabid dog makes it to his studios in Greenwich village and finds Susan there looking to get photographed by him and thus start her career, as Verbig promised her, as a top fashion model. By then the police got a clue, through hair samples in his clothes, to who the crazed and murderous psycho is and got there in the nick of time to prevent Verbig from doing her in!***SPOILERS*** The movie ends with a sedated looking Virbig strapped down on a bed at New York City's Bellevue's psychiatric ward being examined and giving a dose of truth serum by Dr. Jason, Jason Niles, in order to find out just what makes him tic. And also see if there's any way to cure him from his murderous urges that already cost the lives of some half dozen young women. Despite Dr. Jason's recommendation to have Verbig's life to be spared, by reason of insanity, and committed to a mental facility to be studies as well as cured of his murderous urges. Instead Dr. Jason recommendation is overridden by the jury in Verbig's trial who found him sane and sentenced him to Sing Sing's electric chair instead! And with his death also was killed any way of knowing how to cure future Jan C. Virbig's medically as well as psychologically before they commit their first and many to follow murders!