Episode 28 - The Roommates (1973)

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The Roommates seems like something so simple, just another beach party movie, just another day in the Grindbin, but that's simply not the case; not at all. The Roommates (1973) Directed by Arthur Marks is one of the craziest most confounding movies I've ever seen in my life. 

Is it a beach party movie? Is it a slasher horror film? Is it a love story? Is it a anthropological study about the role of women in 1970's American society? This movie is all of these things and yet none of these things. Does this sound confusing? Well try watching the movie.

Despite the scatterbrained nature of the film I can't help but love it. It is truly one of my favorite films we've covered on this show. It's an oddity so out of place, so not of this planet that it simply must be watched. It's as if an alien race collected all the media produced up until 1973 in American culture and combined it into one feature length movie and dropped it off in a drive-in theater to study the results. 

When five girls decide to go to Lake Arrowhead for their summer vacation they find that their lives will never be the same. Or maybe they will. The movie - and the audience - can never really figure that out. We will go from vignette to vignette where the girls might try and find love, might become sexual predators, might be preyed upon by older men, and then all of a sudden someone starts killing people. It's OK though, nobody really pays much attention to the murders going on, after all, it's summer vacation and worrying about a knife wielding maniac seems to passe

I can't stress enough how amazing this movie is. It honestly must be seen to be believed. It's not worth me explaining it. Just watch it, listen to the podcast, and tell us if you can make anything out of it; we certainly can't.

NEXT WEEK'S MOVIE

Catch the Heat (1987)

Director: Joel Silberg
Writer: Stirling Silliphant
Stars: Tiana Alexandra, David Dukes, Rod Steiger