Snickering Vietnam vet Kirk Smith (Nicholas Worth) is one hell of a sicko: for a living, he shoots obscene pornographic photos, and in his spare time, he strangles pretty young women BEFORE raping them. LA detectives Lt. Chris McCabe (James Westmoreland) and Sgt. Hatcher (Ben Frank) are hot on the maniac's heels, but can they catch him before he kills his latest target, radio psychologist Dr. Lindsay Gale (Flo Lawrence)?

With such a sleazy premise, Don't Answer The Phone looks set to be a classic slice of extremely offensive exploitation, but with director Robert Hammer reluctant to go that extra mile to offend, the film falls short of the high (or should that be low?) standards set by his contemporary William Lustig, whose similarly themed film, Maniac, goes all out to shock the viewer.

Worth's character, Kirk Smith, is an undeniably repugnant fellow, and what he gets up to certainly ain't nice, but Hammer's approach to his patently sensationalist material is surprisingly cautious: whilst he doesn't mind showing the audience a little nudity (for example, all of the victims have their tops torn off before being choked to death),he doesn't quite seem to possess the cojonas necessary to present his sex and violence in the no-nonsense manner the genre demands.

Instead, his characters simply fill us in on the salacious details through conversation: a psychic gives a graphic account of the murder and rape of one girl, offering lurid tidbits of info about Kirk's modus operandi, and several characters pass comment on the particularly explicit nature of his photography. At the risk of sounding like a dangerous psycho myself, I ask 'Where's the really good stuff?'. A few throttlings and some tits only qualify this as exploitation lite!

To be fair, Don't Answer The Phone does manage to deliver a couple of scenes that almost make the grade—Kirk strangles a junkie hooker whilst she is live on air with Dr. Gale, and one topless victim is subjected to scalding by melted candle wax— but with too many other scenes pulling their punches, this film is most likely going to disappoint fans of degenerate cinema.

5.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Does the title have anything to do with the picture? I kept wondering, because even though there are a few scenes involving a phone, they don't create the kind of fear or tension you'd expect with a come-on like that. Except maybe for that one where the strangler kills the prostitute in bed, but in that scene, the phone call was already in progress. Am I being nit-picky?

Right out of the gate, the opening credits leave nothing to the imagination, as the actor who goes around murdering his victims is identified as 'The Killer'. In the story, he's tagged with the name Kirk Smith, so in that respect, actor Nicholas Worth gets the proper recognition that's his due. Worth isn't a known commodity to me, but as poor an actor that he is, he gives it his all here in any number of situations, and is at his over-the-top best when he laments his upbringing and place in society, breaking down and crying in a fit or remorse, except it doesn't stop him from continuing his murder spree.

For the attentive, there are a couple of well placed sight gags befitting the nature of the story, like the Sin-O-Rama with it's twenty five cent movie arcade and slime-ball owner, and I got a kick out of the street hustler in front of 'The Balled Eagle'. I thought the final confrontation between the killer and police lieutenant McCabe (James Wesrmoreland) would go down a lot grittier, but for the final denouement, it was gratifying to hear McCabe bid adieu to the strangler with "Adios, creep!" It made me all warm inside.

I'm sure that there was, but it's not a plot point, and certainly the producers and writers could have come up with something better. Vintage Los Angeles scenery is nice to look at (as it changed a ton in just the three years before I moved there),and shots of the sleazy porn shops (now gone) adds to the amoral attitudes of the time. It's another psycho on the street killing pretty young women thriller, dealing with the very troubled Vietnam war vet Nicholas Worth who is quickly revealed to be the serial strangler. Call-in radio hostess Flo Gerrish (Lawrence) becomes involved in the case, joining forces with police detective James Westmoreland to i.d. the killer. Check out the breathing on the model whose neck has just been broken, an obvious blooper that I picked up on right away.

Certainly, the subject matter is very disturbing, but the writing gives us an insight to Worth's issues so he's not just a one dimensional monster. There's been commentary on the bad performances of Westmoreland and Lawrence, but even worse is Chris Wallace as a phony psychic whose details are a bit too graphic, with a line delivery that is laughable. This isn't horrible, just truly depressing, and it shows society (and the home of most movie makers) to be a really vile place. The only intriguing element about this film is watching how Worth goes down, and indeed, that is worth the wait.