I'll tell you why so serious

From my favorite movies..

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This film is, without a doubt, one of the oddest, campiest, and most enjoyable I have ever come across. It isn't a teen movie, a thriller, or a true crime film, however it tries to be all three at once. Teen-Age Strangler(the title I saw it under on Mystery Science Theater 3000), is one of those films you watch, and say "So this is where that horror/crime cliché came from!" From the creepy janitor, the shower kill covered up by a turned-up rockin' radio, to the lipstick-marked victims, this movie runs like a thriller paint-by-numbers. All this being said, Teen-Age Strangler is a good popcorn film, great for the times you need a good dozen laughs. One thing I found off-putting was the killer's reveal and explanation for their crimes. There was a chance for a great creepy speech dripping with venom, but the actual one sounds vague and tired. Why did he use a stocking as his garrote? What did the lipstick mean? Did he really "touch" that girl years ago? Watch and see if you can guess the truth, and have a killer time doing it!

The murders in this schlocky, mistitled movie seem merely peripheral to the real action, which is all the singing, dancing, flirting, and fighting at a local teen hangout. It is hardly surprising, then, that the filmmakers include a songwriter of two tunes featured in the adolescent action. Though the settings are realistic--since actual locations were utilized--no one succeeded in finding a competent director or cast. Bill Bloom, however, as Jimmy, somehow struggles through the mire of an inane script to show some skills as an actor. Most of the players range from wooden to overwrought, so that the movie does emerge with some worth as an unintentional farce.

You have to like "Teenage Strangler". Or at least I do. There's so many problems and mistakes and inanities and miscues and missed opportunities here that it's like an all-you-can-eat buffet for your inner film critic. But it's still a likable (if laughable) film. The filmmakers didn't have a clue about how to write dialog, pace a scene, direct an actor, film a chase scene, edit a film, or, apparently, market their finished product for a wider distribution. And the acting on display here wouldn't pass muster at the local community theater tryouts. Every scene features some of the most tin-eared lines dialog you can possibly conceive, which are then delivered with some of the most hilariously inappropriate line readings ever kept on film. Example: "I knew a policeman named Henderson once." "The name I have is...ANDERSON." Another example. "I'll pick you up from school I don't know how this is going to end but BY JUPITER I won't be..." Everyone here is straining so hard to make a GOOD film, an IMPORTANT film that comments on contemporary morays while also displaying arch wit and hipness...and everyone here stinks up the joint something awful. Bill Rebane would abandon the project in despair. Ed Wood, Jr. would scrap these scenes as "unsalvageable". Herschel Gordon Lewis would decide that they just "weren't suitable". Larry Buchanan would...well, on 2nd thought, Larry Buchanan might use them. But only because he didn't have enough of a budget for another take. Highlights of "Teenage Strangler" include: The scene where "Mikey" and "Betty", in the emotional climax of the movie, have a joint meltdown in front of the police detective that will cause you to rupture your diaphragm. There is a hotrod 'drag race' scene where the hot-rods reach apparent speeds of 20 mph. The additional 15 mph 'chase scene' near the end of the movie between the same two hot-rods where the camera pans away and the Foley sound effects make it sound as if the driver shot himself and then exploded. There is the whole "I didn't steal no bike neither" subplot which exceeds all known FDA allowances for goofiness. There is the "juvenile delinquent gang" subplot which packs all the drama and emotional resonance of a toothpaste commercial. There is the psycho janitor, and the misunderstood sullen kid, and the "Yipes Stripes" dance party where the peppy girl dances and sings on the lunch counter in her pantaloons while the kids have epileptic seizures all around. (Oh no, my mistake, they aren't having seizures, they're dancing.) But you know something? It's all so kitschy and well meaning that you can't hate the people involved, and you end up enjoying "Teenage Strangler" for its campy sincerity and its fumble fingered tributes to far, far better films made by actual directors. The MST3K coverage of "Teenage Strangler" easily falls into their Top 10 all time enjoyable episodes. Let's hope it gets reissued on one of their DVD collections so it can continue to make our milk go down the wrong pipes and out our nostrils instead.

Like many others, I saw this on MST3K (albeit a long time ago). It was hilarious, and I'm sure it's pretty funny on it's own, too. The plot has something to do with a teenage strangler, a new kid with a bad rep, his bike-stealing mongoloid younger brother, and a malt shop sock hop. What I remember most is the movie being so colourful that it was just pretty to look at despite what happened on screen, and of course the memorable acting of young Mikey, who was related to the director in some way to earn his role. Features the "hit" single "Yipe Stripes" and a cheat ending.