An ink-black hell ride into the ravaged psyche of a woman with a past murder on her mind. There’s no other film in 1955 that compares to this (essentially) silent movie that goes for broke on sensual imagery. Any frame here would fit on a pulp fiction paperback cover. And this IS pulp. Pulp poetry, I’d say. Very simple. Raw. Tasteless. And gloriously so. It speaks plain language without saying a word—and wow, is it dirty. Anyone with anything happening between their legs at all gets the fiercely Freudian sexual imagery of the infamous chicken dinner scene (starring bloated B-movie mainstay Bruno VeSota). And we all know that pensive lead Adrienne Barrett is good and guilty of her crimes. If she won’t tell us the truth, the shadows do. The shadows in this film have so much to say.
This film is one of those weird islands in movie history. The director never made anything else. The leading lady didn’t get around much in the movie business, either. The supporting cast are the familiar ones (check out dwarf actor Angelo Rossitto in one scene, in the middle of a career that would last sixty years) and they’re all we have to ground this cinematic ghost in reality and know that we didn’t dream it. Also, this somehow got featured in The Blob as the marquee attraction, under its alternate title Daughter of Horror, showing during the famous movie theater scene. I guess the footage came cheap, like all pulp.