THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (1974) ****
The Centerfold Girls is a great, surprising, and nasty ‘70s exploitation movie. You can’t get much more ’70s than Andrew Prine, Aldo Ray, and Tiffany Bolling in one movie. It has a terrific set-up, an irresistible hook, and several unexpected plot twists. Plus, it also features an amazing amount of nudity. Seriously, a nubile female takes her top off practically every time they enter and/or exit a scene. It’s truly a sight to behold.
Prine plays a puritanical serial killer who is picking off nude models featured in a men’s magazine. That’s really just the broad strokes though. There’s a lot more to The Centerfold Girls than meets the eye.
This could’ve been the usual stalk ‘em and slash ‘em routine. The cool thing about The Centerfold Girls is that it’s told as an anthology movie. Each half-hour tale follows three different victims of Prine’s lunacy. Each tale contains its own peculiar set of circumstances around the crime. The first story plays almost like Last House on the Left. The second feels like a Russ Meyer version of an Agatha Christie novel. The final segment (featuring Bolling) is pretty much the most straightforward, but it features a cool chase finale through a burnt out forest.
Andrew Prine is at his all-time best playing the killer. Dressed in all black and living in a house decorated in all white, he is quite menacing and gets several great scenes where he makes creepy phone calls to his victims. Aldo Ray is quite good as a Good Samartian-turned-pervert. Tiffany Bolling has some nice moments too as the spunky Final Girl.
Some will be put off by the rampant sleaze found throughout the picture. However, fans of exploitation and grindhouse cinema will be impressed by the pull-no-punches, take-no-prisoners attitude the filmmakers adopted. The Centerfold Girls is definitely one for the books.
AKA: Girl Hunter.