First, there is almost a complete lack of exploitative sexual violence stuff. There is violence in a sexual context (because the killer's problems are all bound up in his unresolved issues about his mother's sex work and seeing women who are sexually active is clearly a trigger for him), but the way that it's shot doesn't feel like a bunch of scenes were assembled clearly for the purpose of displaying female bodies for titillation alongside their brutal murders. There's one shot that falls in to that category (an unnecessary--though not horribly excessive--full frontal shot of a woman getting into a bathtub), but there's a nice dearth of "This woman is going to be killed horribly, but first let's contrive to get her shirt off."
I was in my 20s and it was the first time that I recognized how a movie was manipulating my horny male brain. "I normally like seeing boobies, but all the killing ruins it." This is a momentous epiphany for a young straight male. I'm being absurd for humor's sake but I guess you know what I mean. The movie was giving me what I thought I wanted but it was making me feel bad about wanting it. So hearing you say that this is precisely NOT what it's doing is intriguing. I always intended to revisit this and now even more so.
**I want to repeat that I haven't seen this since the 90s, so I'm not making the claim that this film is especially misogynistic. I'd have to watch it again to make that determination.**
EDIT: Re-reading that, I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself well. Short version:
What I'm trying to say is that in my memory every murder was preceded by a woman's shirt coming off, so I'm surprised to hear you say that's not the case.
Last edited by Captain Terror; 05-19-22 at 01:46 PM.