The Lonely Sex (1959) Richard Hilliard

Maniac kidnaps a young girl and holds her prisoner in a shack in the woods.

A messed up hermit sex deviant (an unsettling portrayal by Karl Light) kidnaps an attractive young woman (the fetching Jean Evans) and holds her hostage in his remote shack located deep in the woods.

Bluntly directed in a simple manner by Richard Hilliard (who also co-wrote the spare and straightforward script with Stephen Ripley), with stark black and white cinematography by Hilliard and Valmore Suprenant, a seriously warped morality, a moody jazzy score by Donald Martino, crude production values, acceptable acting by a no-name cast, and a tasty pair of bare boobs courtesy of a foxy gal who removes her bra at the very start of the picture, this obscure underground exploitation oddity radiates an authentically seedy vibe.

Moreover, this movie’s baffling attempt at presenting a depraved’n’deranged degenerate voyeur psycho stalker sicko as a pitiable (!) tormented figure gives it an additional unnerving edge. Better still, Lean Benedict makes the viewer’s skin crawl as a slimy creep peeping tom who actually emerges as the hero (?!) of the piece. It’s this latter element of misguided sympathy for vile and dangerous perverts that in turn makes this flick so jarring and strangely effective in an admittedly nihilistic sort of way; one almost admires the filmmakers for their audacity in this particular regard. Solid sordid fun.

The Lonely Sex (1959)