Why so much hype?

the audience applauded

hyped garbage

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Peter Carpenter's display of himself. He was one of the writers, the lead actor and singer for the film. He basically showcased himself in this film.The movie is cheesy but a bit fun to watch. The opening of the film is a real hoot - I found myself laughing out loud as Peter sang and danced with the opening credits rolling. I thought to myself "is this guy trying to imitate Tom Jones?" LOL. It made for a fun and funny opening scene.The rest of the film isn't all that bad, it's watchable, but it's not a good horror film. If you want see a really good Carpenter horror movie then find one by John Carpenter not Peter Carpenter. If you want a laugh then you might like 'Point of Terror'.4/10

Smarmy and ruthlessly ambitious, but handsome and sexy lounge singer Tony Trelos (a perfectly slimy portrayal by hunky beefcake Peter Carpenter) works at a local nightclub in order to keep himself afloat. Tony meets mysterious wealthy man-hungry vamp Andrea Hilliard (the almighty Dyanne Thorne in peak predatory form), who promises to secure Tony a record contract with a major record label. However, things don't work out exactly like Tony hoped they would. Director Alex Nicol, working from a blithely trashy script by Ernest A. Charles and Tony Crechales, relates this entertainingly tawdry tale of greedy, deceit, and betrayal at a steady pace, delivers a handy helping of tasty gratuitous female nudity and leering soft-core sex, and tosses in a few murders for good measure. Moreover, the enthusiastic cast attack the lurid material with definite zest: Thorne and Carpenter really sink their teeth into their juicy parts, Leslie Simms has a hammy field day as Andrea's booze-sodden best gal pal Fran, Joel Marston contributes a pleasingly nasty turn as Andrea's bitter and overbearing crippled husband Martin (Andrea's big confrontation with Martin in front of a pool is a total corker!), and Lory Hansen brings considerable sweet charm to her role as Andrea's cute, perky, innocent stepdaughter Helayne. Better still, the groovy swinging songs, Tony's marvelously kitschy sub-Tom Jones nightclub act (Tony's first number in which he's wearing a ghastly red jumpsuit complete with flowing fringe is a tacky gut-buster!), Robert Maxwell's garish cinematography, and the gloriously lame "surprise" twist ending add immensely to this movie's substantial campy appeal. A complete schlocky hoot.

Lurid thriller from the Crown International Pictures vault provides one of the sleaziest tales of wanton lust, infidelity, and unscrupulous greed ever lensed, with a few violent on-screen murders thrown in for good measure. The inimitable Dyanne Thorne is in it, and that fact alone makes it worthy of investigation.A tacky Tony Bennett-style lounge singer abandons his pregnant girlfriend when he becomes intimately involved with the bitchy, high-strung wife(and soon-to-be widow) of a bigshot record industry mogul. Just to prove what a no-class opportunist scumbag this creep is, he soon takes to screwing her dim-witted stepdaughter as well.If you're on a hunt for cheap thrills in the immortal 70s drive-in/grindhouse tradition, Look no further than POINT OF TERROR...it's such an uncurbed blast of raffish overindulgence that it makes something as famously profligate as BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS appear subdued by comparison. Surprisingly, it actually works in a fallacious, all-wrong sort of way, though a preposterous non-ending cripples it significantly. A potentially gratifying watch for fans of excessive, tawdry thrillers, and such a distinctly 1970s relic that you might come away from it smelling like Hai-Karate.4/10

Get a group together to witness POINT OF TERROR which, as others will have noted, is not a horror movie (but *is* pretty horrible!). The film is, rather, a sexploitation melodrama about a ruthless, ladder-climbing lounge singer, Tony Trelos (Peter Carpenter) who gets involved both intimately and professionally with Andrea (Dyanne Thorne), the sex-starved, alcoholic wife of a wheelchair-bound music industry mogul. Everything about this film is a howler: script, acting, production values (tin-foil sets), and the music...the music...oh, those songs! On top of everything else we have a protagonist who likes to "drop trou" and show off his humpy bod (and there ain't nuthin' wrong with that!). Peter Carpenter must have an ego the size of Mount Rushmore to flash us a lingering butt-shot when he emerges from a shower as well as a fully nude side-angle shot where his leg just barely hides the family jewels from view. WOOF!!! Did he ever do a Playgirl spread? It certainly would have been up his alley... Tempestuous blonde bombshell co-star Dyanne Thorne is a force to be reckoned with (and how!) with a rack that won't quit, and her buoyant topless scene in a swimming pool is one of the film's highlights (along with her many excursions into overacting). Watch for scenes with Joel Marston as the wheelchair-bound husband who can't seem to sit still (although he's supposed to be utterly incapacitated from the waist down), and in one poolside scene catches himself just before crossing his legs! Leslie Simms in a supporting role as one of Andrea's lush friends is a scene stealer, while Paula Mitchell as Sally turns in a tragically robotic performance. It just keeps getting better and better...! The film's cinematography is often laughably blurry when "focusing" on Carpenter during his lounge act at The Lobster House (yes, The Lobster House, I kid you not), or else it's bizarrely "creative" (as happens during a moonlit, beach-side sex scene involving select points of view shown in split-screen). Oh, and the wardrobe...and hair!!! Look, if you're not a fan of "bad cinema", don't bother with this title since you won't even be able to appreciate the astonishing epic quality of this carefully crafted bomb. But if you're like me, and get sick chuckles out of films that tried really hard but totally missed the mark, then rent this one immediately or buy it (Rhino DVD released POINT OF TERROR as part of a multi-film set titled HORRIBLE HORRORS in October of 2004). This one gets a whopping 8 out of 10 just because its so terribly awful that it's engagingly entertaining in repeat viewings (and how cool is that!?!) -- how often does a "bad" film come along that still yields new stuff to ridicule on repeat viewings? POINT OF TERROR is a winner! And speaking of winners, what EVER happened to a talent like Peter Carpenter??? Enquiring Minds Want To Know!!!