Point of Terror
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
Lounge singer Tony Trelos is approached by a woman on a beach one afternoon. Her name is named Andrea Hilliard, and she is a wealthy woman whose crippled husband Martin owns a record label. That night, Andrea goes to watch Tony perform at his regular oceanside California club. She offers to cut him a record deal. Tony begins a sexual relationship with her, and begins ignoring Sally, a former flame of his. Unbeknownst to Tony, Andrea murdered Martin's former wife in their home after having begun an affair with him nine years before.
One evening, Martin confronts Andrea, saying he witnessed her having sex with Tony in their swimming pool earlier that night. In a tussle, Andrea pushes Martin into the pool, and watches him drown. After his death, Martin's daughter, Helayne, arrives from Europe where she has been attending college. After the funeral, Tony is told by Andrea's alcoholic friend, Fran, that Martin's ex-wife was murdered by an unknown intruder, and that Helayne was sent to boarding schools throughout Europe after Andrea and Martin→ married.
Tony seduces Helayne, which drives Andrea mad. One evening, on a cliff near Andrea's home, the two get into an argument, and she attempts to kill him, but Tony throws her over the edge to the rocks below, killing her. Helayne witnesses the event, and the two embrace. Upon returning to the house, Tony is confronted by Sally, who shoots him to death. He then awakens on the beach, where Andrea approaches him; all that has occurred has been a premonition.

Review: The film is, rather, a sexploitation melodrama about a ruthless, ladder-climbing lounge singer, Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) who gets involved both intimately and professionally with Andrea (Dyanne Thorne), the sex-starved, alcoholic wife of a wheelchair-bound music industry mogul.
Tempestuous blonde bombshell co-star Dyanne Thorne is a force to be reckoned with (and how!) with a rack that won't quit, and her buoyant topless scene in a swimming pool is one of the film's highlights (along with her many excursions into overacting).
The film's cinematography is often laughably blurry when "focusing" on Carpenter during his lounge act at The Lobster House (yes, The Lobster House, I kid you not), or else it's bizarrely "creative" (as happens during a moonlit, beach-side sex scene involving select points of view shown in split-screen).
But if you're like me, and get sick chuckles out of films that tried really hard but totally missed the mark, then rent this one immediately or buy it (Rhino DVD released POINT OF TERROR as part of a multi-film set titled HORRIBLE HORRORS in October of 2004).
This one gets a whopping 8 out of 10 just because its so terribly awful that it's engagingly entertaining in repeat viewings (and how cool is that!?!) -- how often does a "bad" film come along that still yields new stuff to ridicule on repeat viewings?
BLOOD MANIA and this one, POINT OF TERROR (I haven't seen "LOVE ME LIKE I DO" but with such a great title, I'm dying to see it).
Carpenter stars as a lounge singer who sounds/looks like Tom Jones.
Basically, people using people because of money and greed kinda of story.With better production values than BLOOD MANIA, POINT OF TERROR sometimes looks/sounds like a Russ Meyer film, without the extreme excess that's usually found in Russ Meyer's films.
It's Russ Meyer-lite.I love everything in POINT OF TERROR: the music (did Carpenter really sing those songs?), the fashion, the sudden sporadic bursts of violence, the focus on sex, sex, sex.
Though not as memorably over-the-top as BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, POINT OF TERROR is, IMO, much more entertaining than the over-baked BTVOTD.Favorite scenes: the opening credits, with Carpenter singing/dancing in a red fringe get-up.
The main reason Weldon (and other fan boys) dislikes POT and BLOOD MANIA is probably because the focus is mainly on hunky Peter Carpenter (both films were produced by Carpenter himself...ah, narcissism).
Not another tired, early 70s slasher film by any means, this riot is about a sleazy side-burned lounge singer (Peter Carpenter) picked up by a sleazier female record promoter (Dyanne Thorne) who sees something special in the guy.
Like its earlier companion feature "Blood Mania," 1971's "Point of Terror" was plainly a vanity piece for writer-producer-star Peter Carpenter, a Vegas hoofer whose death remains shrouded in mystery to this day, dates as varied as late 1970, late '71, even the late 70s-early 80s (this last posted by actress Leslie Simms).
Imagine a singer so bad he has nightmares on the beach about his singing, and his apartment looks like his decorator was 'Bela Lugosi!' Another surprising name prominently featured in the opening credits is future Oscar winning editor Verna Fields, who earned her Academy Award for her work on Spielberg's "Jaws" just a few years later.
Leslie Simms fondly recalls her working with Peter Carpenter, who may have been a likable fellow off camera, but insisted on playing lowdown sleazeballs in his own films.
Dyanne Thorne (whom I first saw in STAR TREK's "A Piece of the Action") had already appeared with Carpenter in 1970's "Love Me Like I Do," here playing the man hungry wife of wheelchair bound record mogul Joel Marston, best remembered by genre buffs for 1957's "The Disembodied," plus his film debut in the 1949 Charlie Chan finale "The Sky Dragon" ("Blood Mania" had featured Jacqueline Dalya, from 1941's "Charlie Chan in Rio").
For all the wildly misleading ads depicting this as a horror film, the only scene that qualifies is Dyanne's bloody murder of Marston's first wife, just a brief flashback.
"Point of Terror," being part of Crown International's television package, debuted on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater on Feb 26 1977, paired with second feature "House of Horrors" (1946), broadcast twice more over the next 4 years ("Blood Mania" earlier debuted on Nov 27 1976, paired with 1972's "Gargoyles")..
Vanity project for B-movie actor Peter Carpenter, who co-produced and co-authored the original story for this, his final starring feature before his death.
A horrendous musical intro kicks off the film as the opening credits roll, with the lead character Tony Trelos aping about on stage in a blazing, red suede suit with waterfall fringe.
It's the EastWestDVD edition that pairs it with James Earl Jones' Blood Tide.After reading the other reviews here, I feel the need to warn people away from dollar store versions of this film because the nudity has been completely edited out and this movie has nothing else going for it.To give an example of just how shoddy a product the EastWestDVD print is, there's a section that's five or more minutes long that repeats in its entirety.I don't know what annoys me more, that the print was mutilated, or that I'm going to have to track down a uncut version and suffer through it again.
Point of Terror (1971) BOMB (out of 4) I need to admit that I have no idea what this film was about or what it was trying to say but here's the so-called plot.
Tony (Peter Carpenter) is a nightclub singer at the Lobster Lounge where he's hoping to catch a break but most of the time he ends up in the beds of older women.
Soon, one of these older woman (Dyanne Thorne of Ilsa fame) offers him a record contract.
Tony, thinking he's going to get popular, starts acting like a star, which upsets the older woman.Make any sense?
I really don't know what the horror elements are doing in this film because it's mostly about Tony and his record contract.
I kept watching this movie and expecting it to turn into a horror film but it remained a record contract film with a few doses of mystery, which were just downright boring and hard to follow as well.The director at least knew to make the women get naked and yes boys, that includes Ilsa herself.
Tony's involvement and exploits with her are more dangerous than he's aware of, however, as she's guilty of a murder, and capable of another.The second piece of celluloid sleaze that Peter Carpenter wrote and starred in after the atmospheric (and underrated) "Blood Mania," "Point of Terror" is a significantly less thrilling picture—far more talky and significantly less moody.
It also seems to be cribbing elements of "Blood Mania" in a lot of ways, as it follows borderline identical plot arcs that have been minutely tweaked: Man becomes involved with wealthy woman.
The film is peppered with some of the most ridiculously "seventies" musical numbers you'll ever see, and also boasts a significant amount of skin from a buxom Dyanne Thorne and the hunky Carpenter.
There is a nice doubled-over twist at the end of the film that is clever but rather cheap, and the general impression I got after it was over was that Carpenter seemed to have wanted to do-over "Blood Mania," but this time invoke as much of Jess Franco's "Succubus" as he could.All in all, "Point of Terror" is a middling thriller that, while mildly amusing, is more or less a rehash of Carpenter's prior (and better) film.
It's a so-bad-it's-good piece of entertainment for sure, and not even a horror film really despite the title and plotting; a guy has weird dreams, but the on-screen horror element is kept to a bare minimum.Instead this feels more like a softcore thriller, with a bizarre lead role for Peter Carpenter, who seems to be channelling the spirit of Tom Jones (or he wishes to, at least) for the most part.
Carpenter plays a nightclub singer (the musical scenes are excruciating) who hooks up with a femme fatale, played by the frequently topless Dyanne Thorne.
Thorne, of course, is notorious for her role as ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE SS, and she proves to be a statuesque and arresting presence in every scene here.POINT OF TERROR has much in common with the psycho-thriller genre that flourished in the wake of Hitchcock's PSYCHO.
It made for a fun and funny opening scene.The rest of the film isn't all that bad, it's watchable, but it's not a good horror film.
If you want a laugh then you might like 'Point of Terror'.4/10.
Point of Terror has the funniest opening credits I've seen in a long while, with its writer and 'star' Peter Carpenter singing a god-awful song while gyrating crazily in a red, mega-tassled jacket and circulation-restricting trousers.
It's truly cringe-worthy stuff, boding well for fans of trash cinema, for whom horribly dated fashion, awful music and crap dancing is all part of the fun.As success-hungry lounge singer Tony Trelos, Carpenter doesn't disappoint, regaling the viewer with further diabolical warbling throughout while squeezing into more ridiculously tight fashion disasters.
Tony's unmistakable sense of style and rugged manliness doesn't go unnoticed by the ladies, with big-breasted queen-bitch Andrea Hilliard (Dyanne Thorne)—wife of wheelchair-bound music mogul Martin (Joel Marston)—soon digging her claws in, promising Tony fame in exchange for sex.Their special arrangement soon begins to go awry, however, with Andrea dragging her heels in getting Tony his record contract and Martin becoming suspicious of his wife's unorthodox business arrangements.
An unfortunate pool-side 'accident' puts paid to Martin's jealousy, but when Andrea's sexy step-daughter Helayne (Lory Hansen) shows up at her father's funeral, catching Tony's roving eye, and the singer's ex-girlfriend announces that she is pregnant, the stage is set for further acts of lustful violence.Deceit, death, money, greed and sex: Point of Terror features all the expected ingredients of a regular murder/mystery potboiler, but distinguishes itself with a glorious excess of trashiness; not only do we the get all the gaudy early-70s trappings, with strong primary colours and some groovy split screen editing accentuating the tastelessness, but there's gratuitous nudity (narcissist Carpenter taking any opportunity to bare his ass and Thorne, the one and only She Wolf of the SS, flaunting her impressive assets), alcohol and drug abuse, sexual harassment in the workplace, and random violence, including a frenzied knife attack and a high-dive onto some rocks.
"Point of Terror" is unendurably boring trash with a completely uninteresting plot (about a lousy pop-singer trying to screw together a record contract), bleak characters, absolutely no tension and the most redundant and overlong flashback sequence in the history of horror cinema!
The story becomes even more inept halfway through the film, with the introduction of totally new characters but, if you're smart enough, you'll never reach this point (...of terror).
The Lobster House is decorated with tinfoil, Tony Trelos looks like a disturbing mixture of Tony Curtis and musician Herb Albert, and a lot of screen time is used showing him with his shirt off.
Intercut with his song and dance is what appears to be a woman's death (we'll see the actual scene towards the end of the movie).
He meets a woman who's a record producer's wife.Though this is in a box set called "Horrible Horrors," it's barely a horror movie.
Essentially, this is more the story of a small-time lounge singer who's willing to do anything to rise to the top.The last scene of the movie involves someone waking up screaming.
I knew what this film was going to be like right from the beginning when Pete Carpenter, the male lead, dances in the foreground of a ridiculous bright red background ala a poor man's Tom Jones in red attire from head to toe.
Things then move to Carpenter, perhaps having one of the biggest self-inflated egos I have seen in any film, play with a girl who loves him but can not offer him any career advancement.
Carpenter then lies on a beach, finds an older but beautiful woman(the lovely, buxom Dyanne Thorne), realizes she happens to be married to the man in charge of a recording company that could give him his big break, and you can imagine where things go from there.
Despite all of this film's problems - and they are legion, Point of Terror is easily very watchable, laughable, and fun in a so bad its good way.
Terror surely was misused in the title as there is virtually no horror at all in this film - a couple of rather tame deaths, though one is with a man in a wheelchair being goaded like a bull with "Ole" into a pool.
The inimitable Dyanne Thorne is in it, and that fact alone makes it worthy of investigation.A tacky Tony Bennett-style lounge singer abandons his pregnant girlfriend when he becomes intimately involved with the bitchy, high-strung wife(and soon-to-be widow) of a bigshot record industry mogul.
Lounge singer Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) thinks he has hit the big time when he hooks up with Andrea (Dyanne Thorne), wife and talent scout for wheelchair bound music producer Martin.
Throw in her bizarre past (Martin's wife was murdered mysteriously & his daughter hates Andrea) and it looks like Andrea is one tough femme fatale.Pushed as a horror flick (check out the poster), this is actually a pretty bland thriller-sexploitation melodrama.
The film's only fantasy type element is that Trelos wakes up at the end and discovers it was all a dream...right before meeting Andrea for the first time.
Lead Carpenter sure seems to like himself as he produced and co-wrote the screenplay in which he sings and shows of his muscles a lot.
I am not sure what the point was, and I am not too sure about the terror except for maybe that one scene.Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) is a "Tom Jones" style singer at The Lobster House.
This masterpiece of sexploitation opens with nightclub singer Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) in a fringed red suit, lip-synching to a bombastic pop song that makes Tom Jones seem understated.
He becomes involved, both professionally and sexually, with Andrea (Dyanne Thorne), the buxom wife of Martin (Joel Marston), the wheelchair- bound owner of a major record label.
Andrea is both alcoholic and sex-starved, of which Tony takes full advantage in the hope that it will advance his singing career.Peter Carpenter, who co-produced, must have had a whale-sized ego.
One seems to feature the lyric, "Life beans turning into lima beans." (I probably heard it wrong.) Incredibly, the music was produced by veteran songwriter Hal Davis, and a closing credit states that the recordings were "Courtesy of Motown Records." Were Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, and Stevie Wonder not bringing in enough cash to satisfy Berry Gordy, Jr?Some of my favorite parts of POINT OF TERROR: a sex scene on the beach using split screens to show the fornicators at different angles (I counted six); Andrea topless in a swimming pool--with a rack so big, it's amazing she got her head under the water; Andrea's husband Martin, who can't seem to keep still, even though he's crippled from the waist down; when Martin becomes so angry that he tries to beat the crap out of Andrea from his wheelchair (it doesn't go well); when Tony goes home with Andrea's drunken pal Fran (Leslie Simms); when Tony goes horseback riding with Andrea's stepdaughter Helayne (Lory Hansen) and gives her a horsey-ride of his own; Tony also knocks up his main girlfriend Sally (Paula Mitchell), but dismisses the pregnancy as her problem.
I like POINT OF TERROR better though, if for no other reason, that there's no male character who shows himself as having female breasts and changes his name to "Superwoman." (I wish I had made that up, but no.).
Screaming and waking up from a nightmare (of his own terrible, terrible nightclub act) on a secluded beach he meets evil- looking and decadent Andrea (Dyanne Thorne) who's wearing a tasteless bikini.
Screaming and waking up from a nightmare (of his own terrible, terrible nightclub act) on a secluded beach he meets evil- looking and decadent Andrea (Dyanne Thorne) who's wearing a tasteless bikini.
Tony screams and wakes up at the beach (it was all a bad dream), Andrea comes up to him, and highlights from the movie follows, only to be topped by Tony waking up and screaming once more!!!
Tony screams and wakes up at the beach (it was all a bad dream), Andrea comes up to him, and highlights from the movie follows, only to be topped by Tony waking up and screaming once more!!!
The Lobster House is decorated with tinfoil, Tony Trelos looks like a disturbing mixture of Tony Curtis and musician Herb Alpert, and a lot of screen time is used showing him with his shirt off.
I think time has erased any and all good will that the filmmakers had, which considering how dull boring and jaw droppingly awful this film can be wasn't much to begin with.
Smarmy and ruthlessly ambitious, but handsome and sexy lounge singer Tony Trelos (a perfectly slimy portrayal by hunky beefcake Peter Carpenter) works at a local nightclub in order to keep himself afloat.
Still that does not mean it's a good movie in fact it's god awful, with laughable acting,and an amusing, but confusing ending.
Peter Carpenter gives a lousy but amusing performance here, he has charisma, and was likable, but his performance is terrible, and the script does not help matters much,still i liked him, he had a lot of charisma.
Dyanne Thorne, is extremely laughable, she's decent looking, but her performance is god awful, and she cracked me up in a lot of scenes.
Lory Hansen, is also decent looking, but her performance is rather terrible as well, and she had no chemistry with Peter Carpenter.