Sweet Kill (The Arousers) (1972)

Former 50’s teen idol Tab Hunter plays Eddie Collins, a handsome milk-drinking highschool gym teacher living at a beach house in Venice, California – who is also a pathetic, sexually frustrated but impotent voyeur and a necrophiliac killer.

In a flashback scene, Eddie’s mother is seen as the likely cause of his problems.

Most of Eddie’s many murders aren’t bloody, but the slow, moody music and Hunter’s convincing acting make them very effective.

After the first victim is killed, her roommate tells the LAPD about Eddie, but they bust her for pot instead.

Isabel Jewell (a star in the 1930s) plays a snoopy landlady, Roberta Collins plays a hooker who dresses up as his mother for Eddie and pretends to be dead, and Sandy Kenyon is the TV newscaster.

After years as a blonde hunk pinup, this was Hunter’s last major theatrical role until John Waters brought him back for Polyester (1981).

The film wasn’t released until 1972 (by Roger Corman’s New World). Disappointed by the box-office takings when the film was released under its original release title Sweet Kill, Corman had director Curtis Hanson shoot additional sex scenes over a period of two days, to spice up the film, and retitled it and re-released it as The Arousers.

Eddie Collins
Tab Hunter
Lauren
Cherie Latimer
Barbara
Nadyne Turney
Mrs Cole
Isabel Jewell
Vickie
Linda Leider
Call Girl
Roberta Collins
Richard
John Aprea
Sherry
Kate McKeown
Henry
Angus Scrimm (as Rory Guy)
Willard
Frank Whiteman
Davidson
Harv Selsby
Danny
Josh Green
Mr Howard
John Pearce
Newscaster
Sandy Kenyon

Director
Curtis Hanson