Centerfold Girls (1974)

Centerfold Girls was made in 1974 and it can be considered as an early slasher movie, before the slasher movie genre had coalesced into its classic form.

Director John Peyser had a very long career in television although he worked intermittently on feature films in various capacities. Centerfold Girls is an aberration in his career - it’s his only foray into horror and it’s his only foray into exploitation film-making.

Centerfold Girls is about a serial killer who kills nude models. At one point he calls himself Clement Dunne although whether that’s his real name is not entirely clear but for convenience we’ll refer to him by that name. Dunne obviously has some serious issues with women and some serious hangups about sex. He has concentrated all his obsessive hatreds on nude models. We’re not specifically told that his motivations are religious, although it might well be possible. It might just be a product of his fear of women and his shame and guilt about sex.

He has decided to go through a nudie calendar from a girlie magazine and kill the twelve featured models one by one.

As the movie opens he has already killed once. We see him disposing of the body. He seems emotionless. Perhaps killing has temporarily emptied him out psychologically. He treats the body like a slab of meat. It’s a fairy chilling scene.

The rest of the movie comprises three distinct segments, almost mini-movies, the connecting link between them being that each one involves Dunne in stalking one of the calendar girls.

Jackie is a nude model but she has a daytime job as well. She’s a nurse. She’s applied for a position as nurse at an isolated summer camp. On her way there she encounters a hippie chick who seems lost and confused. She’s heading in the same direction as Jackie. Jackie takes pity on her and offer her a lift. That proves to be a big mistake. She makes an even bigger mistake by inviting the girl to stay the night. Jackie is staying in a luxury house modern house owned by one of her relatives.

This was the time of hippie hysteria. In the wake of the Manson murders many people believed that murderous gangs of hippies were roaming the country, leaving behind them a trail of terror and violence.

The hippie chick’s hippie friends, a man and two women, turn up and subject Jackie to a night of humiliation and terror, topped off with rape. Jackie is therefore relieved the next day when a kindly neighbour shows up and offers to drive her home. Unfortunately the kindly neighbour is in fact Clement Dunne.

In the second segment a motley assortment of people set off for a weekend in an isolated house on an island. The house is luxurious enough but the generator doesn’t work so there’s no electricity. There’s also no telephone. The group includes three nude models. They’ll be doing a series of photo shoots. Also along is a photographer and an older couple who handle the business side.

They don’t know that Clement Dunne is on the island as well. His target is Charly, one of the models.

It seems as though by the time Dunne is finished there won’t be anybody left alive on the island.

In the the third segment Dunne has a new target, Vera. She’s an airline stewardess and part-time girlie magazine model.

Vera knows she is being stalked. In fact Dunne makes sure that all his victims know that they’re being stalked. She decides to leave town and hide out in a motel. Her car breaks down and like Jackie she makes the mistake of trusting strangers. As a result she gets raped. She’s so relieved when a mild-mannered travelling salesman gives her a lift. The salesman is of course Clement Dunne.

I think it’s a mistake to try to see this as either a feminist or an anti-feminist movie. It has no political axe to grind. It does take a very sympathetic view of the nude models. They’re nice girls. They’re not nuns and they’re not promiscuous. They’re just ordinary.

Of course the subject matter offers the opportunity to add lots of nudity. And there’s a great deal of nudity in this movie, although no frontal nudity.

The nudity is taken for granted. The fact that the female characters pose nude is not treated as a big deal. There’s no hint of moral condemnation of any of the female targets of Dunne’s hatred. There are characters in the movie deserving of moral condemnation but the nude models are not among them.

Some of the features of the classic slasher movie are already in place here but there are some differences from later movies in the genre. The victims are not teenagers. The violence isn’t graphic. It has shock value but this comes mostly from the obvious hatred displayed by Clement Dunne (which is aided by a nicely chilling performance by Andrew Prine as Dunne). And the shock value also comes from the terror and helplessness of the victims.

Peyser builds the suspense in each segment fairly effectively. The fate of the girls isn’t quite inevitable. It comes about in part as a result of errors of judgment on their part. Had they been a bit more cautious they might not have been in such danger. We feel there’s always the chance they might escape. I’m not going to tell you if any of them do escape.

The movie was shot on 16mm film and probably never looked sensational. Dark Sky’s DVD release offers a transfer that is acceptable but far from pristine. There’s graininess and print damage. I don’t mind that. It adds to the scuzziness of the movie.

Centerfold Girls is interesting as a step on the road that led to the slasher movie craze. And it’s quite an effective movie, and it’s interesting structurally. Recommended.