Young and single, Molly (Millie Perkins, At Close Range) works in a bar. She lives with her sister (Vanessa Brown, The Bad and the Beautiful), a welfare mother of two boys who worship the sea-sailing grandfather they never met and who was lost to the waters 15 years prior. Molly’s own feelings toward her old man are conflicted; after all, he did have a sexual relationship with her.

Needless to say, Molly’s one screwed-up chick — an utterly weird woman whose dark psyche is explored in the utterly weird The Witch Who Came from the Sea.

She experiences detailed fantasies — so twisted they qualify as hallucinations — of slaughtering musclemen on the beach and the shirtless shaving guy on a television commercial for razors. The first sign that there may be more to Molly’s mind games is when she imagines draining two superstar football players of their lifeblood by slicing the Achilles tendon, only to wake up the next morning and learn that the athletes have been murdered.

Director Matt Cimber is working with a higher caliber of material than he’s used to (i.e. Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold), so it’s evident to the viewer that there’s a lot going on here, even if Cimber can’t quite communicate it. He tries, but with its oblique narrative and psychological subtext, he’s in too far over his head. Perkins gives a good performance, although the script (by then-husband Robert Thom, Death Race 2000) requires her to spend too much of it naked. For all her onscreen sacrifice, the ending does her no justice, striking a dour note — and one that feels like a cop-out.

Still, it’s different, and because different is good, the psychological thriller is worth a look. Just watch out for the TV clown. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Amid other liquids, one practically can smell the dribbles of J&B through the screen of The Sister of Ursula, a title that tells you nothing and means only slightly more. It refers to Dagmar Beyne (Stefania D’Amario, Zombie), who’s not quite the main character, yet neither is her sibling, Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi, Suspiria). In fact, no character is developed properly enough to emerge as the lead.

Searching for their estranged mother after their father’s death, the two stop at a seaside hotel in Italy with majestic views and vistas and nightclub singer Stella Shining (Yvonne Harlow). Despite such amenities, Dagmar doesn’t want to stay: “Terrible things are going to happen,” she says. “I see blood.” She’s so certain that she herself will be murdered — not the most ideal of travel companions.

Terrible things do happen, to both the viewer and to the movie’s slutty female characters. Members of the latter group are slain by a killer in requisite black gloves, offed by a … well, a rather unique tool, let’s say. I won’t spoil it, but the shadow knows. The first to go is a prostitute who plies her trade underneath a decidedly unsexy Donald Duck poster.

Promiscuity reigns in this sleazy little thriller by writer/director Enzo Milioni, and each time people go at it, they do so to the tune of the same sax-fueled ballad of the damned. It’s meant to signal sexy, Pavlovian-style, yet is so overused, it will have an opposite effect on viewers. Milioni expended all his energy on these scenes, to the detriment of everything else. Unless you’re just looking for skin, there’s nothing to see here, folks; please move along. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.