12 November 2024
Five Desperate Women (1971)
74 min.
Directed by Ted Post.
With Joan Hackett, Stefanie Powers, Julie Sommars, Denise Nicholas, Anjanette Comer, Robert Conrad, Bradford Dillman.
Excellent, memorable TV horror.

Five close college friends decide to hold a casual reunion on a secluded island resort.

The sprightly women arrive by charter boat, settle into their relaxed lodgings and begin to reminiscence about old times.

Sounds fun, right? Little do the women realize a psychotic killer has recently escaped from an asylum near the mainland...and he's followed them to the remote isle!

Soon, one of the girls is found dead and the only boat available has been sabotaged.

Could the murderer be handyman Conrad or boat steward Dillman?

Or could the lunatic be someone else entirely?

Standout performances highlight this superior TV thriller, especially from Comer and Sommars (the latter so excellent in the 1974 episode I'm the Girl He Wants to Kill from Brian Clemens' acclaimed British television series Thriller).

Also benefits quite well from the isolated setting.

Best scene: southern lush Comer is looking for some booze...and finds a strangler instead.

(And did we mention you also get Joan Hackett and Stefanie Powers for the price of admission here? How could you go wrong?)

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