The Fool Killer (1965) User Reviews

huck finn meets norman bates...?

[bornilon · 8/10 · 31 July 1999]

The Fool Killer is not for all tastes, but the current high cachet for no-budget indy efforts does give it a certain charm that its original (small) audiences may have overlooked. The rather uneven tale of a wandering orphan (Edward Albert) who crosses paths with a disturbed Civil War vet (Anthony Perkins in undisguised "Psycho" mode), the movie has a hard time deciding whether to emphasize its suspenseful overtones, its elegiac coming-of-age elements, or its somewhat loopy character vignettes (by pros like Salome Jens and Henry Hull, who has a field day as a--very literally-- dirty old man).

Young Albert (son of actor Eddie) is fine and surprisingly natural as the clueless kid, and while Tony Perkins does seem very much on Norman Bates auto-pilot here (almost certainly by request), he is still eerily sympathetic as a mysterious drifter with severe post-traumatic issues.

Even though the whole is something less than the sum of its parts, this film is by no means a loser. It's full of rich vignettes (take a look at the tent-revival scene!) and colorful characters, and these for the most part outweigh its moments of pretentiousness and occasional murkiness of motivation. No, it's not "Night of the Hunter"--but on the other hand, it's not "Night of the Lepus" either!

The Fool Killer

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 24 May 2023]

Servando González directed one of the wildest films I've ever seen, El Escapulario, which somehow unites multiple genres and countries of cinema, as well as being folk horror by way of Mexican Catholicism.

Here, somehow, he's in America and making an adaption of the novel of the same name by Helen Eustis. And, to quote Joe Dante, he's making the most Night of the Hunter movie that is not Night of the Hunter.

Working from a script by Morton S. Fine (who wrote a lot of TV, as well as The Greek Tycoon) and David Friedkin (who worked with Fine on the show Frontier), González leads George Mellish (Edward Albert) through the desolate post-Civil War landscape of America. After being beat - again - by his foster parents, George has taken for the open dusty road, a place where he meets Dirty Jim (Henry Hull). Jim tells him of a gigantic axe-carrying killer called The Foolkiller who just may be Milo (Anthony Perkins), a man that he meets as he wanders Tennessee.

George thinks he deserves all the slaps and strikes his foster parents have given him. After all, they quote the Bible the whole time. But after hearing that his foolishness - playing with dandelions is nearly a capital offense - is so strong, he wonders if he's destined to be a victim of the Foolkiller's blade.

As our protagonist and Milo travel, we see that they both have scars from the figurative and literal wars they've fought. There's also a tent revival which is awe-inspiring in its ferocity, as Reverend Spotts (Arnold Moss) snarls, spits and nearly explodes as he convinces George to make the altar call and drop to his knees before the Lord to stay out of the pits of Hell.

Mexican directors never got the chance to make American movies, but this is much closer to a regional film, shot in Knoxville, that somehow got Tony Perkins on board and gave González the opportunity to make a dark fairy tale of childhood, pain and belief.

beautiful and haunting images

[fab_max · 10/10 · 9 March 2007]

As a child, this film had an enormous impact on me. It's a wonderful piece of Americana, a folks tale enriched by beautiful and haunting images thanks to the great B&W photography, and though it is not on the same level as Night of the Hunter, it still has an interesting way of dealing with psychological archetypes. I would go as far as saying that in the portrayal of the way reality is transfigured by a child's imagination, this film is just as good - if not better - than this year's Pan's Labyrinth.

And then there is the immense Anthony Perkins. How sad and annoying that people to this day still use his Norman Bates as a milestone against which they measure the rest of his haunting work. They seem to forget that he had played some seriously tormented characters long before that one and just as well: Josh Birdwell in "Friendly Persuasion", Jim Piersall in "Fear Strikes Out" etc... His unique talents have often been wasted, but here he shines. I never saw any resemblance in his way of playing Milo to that other more celebrated character. Rather, it's a variation on his work in Friendly Persuasion, as if his Josh had gone terribly wrong - a portrait of broken youth, broken dreams, broken beauty. The scene by the river still haunts me to this day. As a child I envied Edward Albert Jr and thought he was very lucky, I wished I had an older brother like him.

I have seen it again when I was finally able to get my hands on a VHS copy. I had to concede that the screenwriters should have worked a lot harder, but I still found it haunting and beautiful, just like its unique star.

A very good movie to watch for young and old alike

[preach68 · 9/10 · 31 August 2008]

I was a part of the filming of this movie.I appeared in at least one scene as an "extra" and was there for the filming of many other scenes.It was filmed on location in Knox County and Blount County in Tennessee in 1963 and premiered at Tennessee Theater in Knoxville TN in April 1965.The outside of Dirty Jim's house was filmed at my home place at Concord Tennessee.The cast did an excellent job.My rating is high for the cast.The plot is good but could have been handled a bit better in my opinion.Overall,this movie is worth seeing.This movie portrays a young boy befriending people while he is on his own and shows a scared but loving kid.

An arrestingly off-beat & original Southern Gothic mystery thriller oddity

[Woodyanders · 9/10 · 21 March 2006]

This singularly off-beat and original period mystery thriller drama curio set in the late 1800's plays like an arrestingly bizarre and inspired cross between "Tom Sawyer" and "Night of the Hunter." Lonely, miserable orphan buy George (a then 12-years-old Edward Albert in his excellent film debut) runs away from his stern, sadistic, abusive foster parents. George meets and befriends a cranky, grubby, but amicable elderly hermit (a sensationally spirited turn by Henry Hull of "The Werewolf of London" fame) who tells him a scary story about a strange 8 foot tall ax-wielding mythical bogeyman figure known as "the fool killer." Anthony Perkins has one of his best, most effectively creepy and compelling post-"Psycho" idiosyncratic wacko parts as Milo, a weird, quiet, disturbed, shell-shocked and enigmatic Civil War vet itinerant loner who suffers from amnesia and may or may not be the deranged murderous madman of local legend.

Sumptuously photographed in crisp black and white by Alex Phillips, Jr., with a fine harmonic folk music score, beautifully fluid editing (the graceful wipes, fades and dissolves are especially sweet), and strong, flavorsome direction by Servando Gonzalez, this spell-bindingly moody and atmospheric oddity wins the viewer over with its intriguingly spooky story, leisurely pacing, engaging array of colorfully quirky characters, and vivid, pungent, powerfully brooding Southern Gothic ambiance. An unjustly overlooked and underrated one-of-a-kind sleeper.

A Haunting and Unforgettable Film

[ladymidath · 10/10 · 16 November 2018]

I first saw The Fool Killer when I was ten or eleven on tv late at night and I never forgot it. The haunting images and the story line stayed with me and I spent years trying to find it again. Well, after nearly forty years, I finally have and it is as every bit as good as I remember it. Anthony Perkins is excellent as Milo, a Civil War soldier who has lost his memory and is obviously still very traumatised. Edward Albert, the son of Eddie Albert is great as George, a young boy who ran away from his abusive foster parents and meets up with some very unusual characters along the way. Henry Hull was funny and likable as Dirty Jim. The rest of the cast were also very good in their various roles, but it is Perkins who really is the captures this movie. As other reviewers have stated, It is no Night Of The Hunter, but it is worth watching.

Film making Gets No Better Than This

[TRussellMorris · 9/10 · 8 June 2020]

Recently a neighbor was borrowing some dvds and balked at a couple of my suggestions because "those are old" (regarding being classic pre-1970 movies), I asked them why, they lamented about how old movies don't really have any modern themes. To which I responded, well, that's because you haven't watched them! I rattled on about the extremely dark and modern themes of such movies as Mildred Pierce, The Little Foxes, Suddenly Last Summer, Long Day's Journey into Night, East Of Eden...and This wonderful masterpiece.With just these films alone centering around themes such as Rape, Drug Abuse, Murder, Prostitution, procurement, PTSD, Serial Killer, child abuse....I explained that dark themes are everywhere in classic movies, they just sometimes are veiled in a way that may actually require you to pay attention and or to THINK a bit.

Eddie Albert and Tony Perkins were magnificent in this film, Tony's portrayal of shell-shock (ptsd) and his fall into psychosis, along side little Eddie's portrayal of an abused child seeking love and stability (With a serial killer no less) were the stuff of movie magic despite the VERY dark themes. To be honest Tony scared me more in this film, with his subtle psychosis than he ever did with his more overt psychosis in Psycho. Eddie, with issues of his own, likewise delivered a performance far beyond his years. The magic between them and their relationship, which left you quite "wondering" sometimes as to who wanted what, was food for thought as films should deliver. Both of these characters, seemingly desperate to find what neither could really identify, ended in obvious darkness, damaged goods and the seemingly inevitable endings brought forth with the understanding that sometimes damage is so great it can't be fixed.

As with other movies I mentioned above, this really is a masterpiece considering the themes and the TIME in which this film was made (1963). The cinematography was great, Tony was in top form, casting was a stroke of genius and managing to keep enough of the themes in, again considering when it was made, to satisfy any dark or controversial movie lover makes this film a must see and must have for any dedicated film collector. The ending literally broke my heart for many reasons.