Night Of The Strangler

It's not often something like "Night of the Strangler" would be the kindest title given to a film, but here we are. I'm not even kidding, you guys. You wanna know what some of the other titles for this film were? The Ace of Spaces, which sounds like a scifi movie, Dirty Dan or Dirty Dan's Woman, which sounds like a Western about a lone gunman hunting down a woman who did him wrong for revenge, Vengeance is Mine which is...just...so very vague and, quite possibly the worst of them all has to be Is The Father Black Enough? Because wow, that's just...that's a hell of a title.

Even better than the title, however, is the tagline for it, which read thusly, "A racist wind blows the dust from a Black man's grave to choke the honkies to death!" Absolutely magnificent, honestly.

The film is fairly poorly produced it seems, with boom mics being notably visible in multiple shots, and, even weirder, despite both a lyricist and vocalist being credited, absolutely zero songs are present in any prints of the film. And possibly worst of all is the fact that the films rather racial title - which was self explanatory and straight forward, along with highlighting the racial tension - was changed to Night of the Strangler with no justification for it considering there's no strangler in the film nor any death via strangulation. This thing is a question mark from start to finish. It also has multiple release dates, ranging from 1972 to 1973 and while surviving prints list a 1972 copyright date, absolutely no copyright registration was actually filed for it.

This movie is as much a mystery as the goddamned Bermuda Triangle.

Despite all of its faults and flaws, as its aged it has gained even more praise for its racial theming and the acting overall is specifically hailed as being worth seeing. Not that the box work would lead you to that conclusion, because this is about as generic as box art gets. I mean, let me ask you a question, how many goddamned movies have we covered at this point featuring a "strangler" of one kind or another? Like, it's a genre in and of itself. It's a sub genre of horror or thriller films. Well, presumably anything with hands in it could have a strangulation scene, right? So "Hands of Steel" is certainly a contender. Also have "The Severed Arm" and "The Invisible Strangler". One of those is a possibility, the other is a surefire guarantee. Should we just give up and convert the blog to covering strangulation based movies? Might be easier, honestly. Or maybe dedicate a single day to it? Do regular posts on Mondays and then have Strangulation Sundays!

Honestly, the box work for this isn't bad, even if it is generic. It's well made art - the line work, the shading, the overall atmosphere - and clearly done by someone fairly talented. But it's just so boring otherwise, and, considering the girl in the movie isn't strangled (in fact, spoiler, she dies very early on by being drowned by a home invader in her bathtub who then slits her wrists in an attempt to disguise it as a suicide. Is drowning a form of strangulation? I mean, you are cutting off their oxygen flow. I think I need to get someone far more vetted with the BDSM community on board because I need answers about choking specifics and terminology. Either way, she's not in it long, and she isn't strangled exactly, yet from a marketing standpoint I understand why both the racial title and the black lead aren't on this box, because it was the early 70s and people would feel much more okay with renting something showing a woman being strangled than a black man standing there non menacingly. This says a lot of things about those people, and how they view both women and black people, but we won't get into that right now.

But it's got a black front and back, bland font (even the title font) design and color, the most minimal description, zero actual screenshots for once and worst of all the most boring tagline in the world on the front. There's absolutely nothing about this that screams "interesting", "worth renting" or "worth having been made".

And try as I might - and admittedly I didn't try hard - I couldn't find any other boxes to compare this one to, so alas, we only have the one to mock. And sadly, there just isn't much to mock. But maybe that's a positive sign. Maybe ending the year on something so mediocre is actually a good thing, and maybe this coming year we'll actually get to cover some really good stuff for a change! I doubt it, but we'll just have to wait and see. Whatever happens, it doesn't change the fact that this bland ass box art is exactly that, bland ass box art, and barely worth the mention here if not for the all the other bizarre facts that are far more interesting to discuss regarding the film.

I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who read this blog this year, and I sincerely hope you'll come join me again next year when it starts back up eventually. Until then, stay safe, stay warm and stay alert.

Because bad box art is always there, always lurking.

Always waiting for its next victim...

...and it could be you.