User Reviews

Once upon a decade, actually about thirty years ago, Aaron Spelling was the absolute King of the Made-for-TV-Movie, and this is a typical example of his labors. I can't say that it's dated, or campy or just plain awful, because I haven't seen it since it originally aired. So I will have to rely on my childhood memories of it, which is to say that it kept me on the edge of my seat, when it didn't scare the living crap out of me!

Five women, alumni and former sorority sisters from the same college, decide to hold a resort-based reunion some years after they graduated and went their separate ways. The resort is on an island, (in Washington state or off the Nantucket coast; I don't recall and I don't believe the movie made it very specific.) A little soap-operatic dish ensues as the girls relive past glories, rivalries and friendships, and it becomes obvious that some of them have some unfinished business between them from the old school days, some of which were not as wonderful as time may have made them seem.

But just when you think you've gotten stuck in some kind of melodramatic character study/chick flick, WHAM! Here comes the surprises, as the girls "get over themselves" quick, fast and in a hurry! One of the girls winds up dead, strangled to death. Soon after the initial panic over THAT, they find that the captain of the ferry boat who brought them to the island is dead as well, not to mention a sweet little dog befriended by the murdered woman, (pets never do seem to fare very well in these shockers, do they?) Well, there's not a whole plethora of suspects for the freaked-out femmes to chose from, considering that there are only two men left on the island, both employees of the resort (Bradford Dillman and Robert Conrad.) At the time the movie was made, this WAS an inspired bit of casting, since one actor was well-known for playing extremely evil or creepy characters, while the other was famed for playing studly, usually shirtless heroes. (Guess which is which...now you know the major 'plot twist', a device that has been worn down by countless movies since.

I guess the title could've been more accurate, but "Two Dead Bodies, One Dead Dog and Four Hysterical Basket Cases" doesn't sound as good, or as dramatic.

So if you figured out from my clue who the "killer" really is, then you know that the girls eventually deal with him. Or, more specifically, one girl does--ROOM 222's Denise Nicholas (the future Mrs. Denise Nicholas-Hill). We never find out if the remaining Desperate Women live happily ever after, but at least they do LIVE.

Writing this has me curious to see this again now. Maybe Nick At Nite or one of the Encore channels will dig it up and dust it off one of these days. Well, it will serve as a kind of historical cinematic artifact...hearkening back to the days when TV movies were actually fun to watch, no matter how trashy or cheesy they seemed to be then (and now), and proof that Aaron Spelling was a true boon to that class of actress known as the 'TV Movie Queen,' of which this cast were spectacular examples, and many of them had Aaron to thank for keeping them working well into the next decade, (including the beauteous Ms. Hackett. Joan, we miss you.)

Actually, it was the Joan Hackett character who is killed. Mary Grace, the blond (played by Jule Sommers), is being strangled when she is saved by the other women.

I saw this film as a little girl, and it made a strong impression on me. It was the first movie I remember seeing where a character died in the middle, and that was very shocking to me. (It resonated more over the years with Hackett's own untimely death). Also, the movie was my first exposure to the idea that women were vulnerable to gender-specific sexual danger. I wonder which of today's films/TV shows are likely to impart a similar message to girls. Or undermine it (like, say, "Buffy").

I remember this telemovie from way back when.

Basic plot, five women are vacationing on a remote island getaway. There are two men, Bradford Dillman and Robert Conrad.

Julie Sommars, I recall the name of Mary Grace, first befriends a poor unfortunate dog and, true to tradition, as in "Horror at 37000 Feet" and "Race With the Devil", the dog meets a deadly fate.

Eventually Mary Grace herself is murdered as well. The remaining ladies must ponder who the killer could be, Dillman or Conrad.

I remember wondering after the death of Mary Grace, why was it still Five Desperate Women?

The dear women almost escaped one night, only to be standing on the dock in stark terror as their escape vessle exploded, lighting up the night sky.

In the end, one of the women, the blonde, is wooed and romanced by Conrad, who tells the frightened girls that Dillman must be the killer.

But things are not as they seem, it seems. The killer is attempting to strangle the blonde as the other three women are striving to stop him. Finally, Denise Nicholas picks up that nice rock and manages to get the job done.

With two women hysterical (one from killing and the other from almost being killed) the last two dears must assist their friends as the ending credits roll.

Not a feminist movie, more of a victimizing film. Certainly not a 'women fight back' film.

Within the first couple of seconds what appears on the screen is an "Aaron Spelling Production". That in mind you probably should know what you're going to get from this made-for-TV mystery thriller. Loads of trashy drama, little thrills and no mystery.

Just like the escape killer from a mental institution in the opening scenes, this one hits the ground running and we get a poor schmuck on the beach at the receiving end of a brutal stabbing. But it's not too long before it's out of puff. There it focuses on five lady friends getting together for a reunion getaway on a remote island with a holiday home. The only other people on the island is the boat captain (Bradford Dillman) and caretaker (Robert Conrad), but one of them is not who they say they are. Smart choice of casting I must admit and their performances were spot on. As for who's the killer, there's no real surprise and it dumbfounds me why the script tries to hide the identity. There are only two choices. One of those is too obvious in its hints of trying to make you believe they're the unhinged killer. Not just the behavioral, but even one of lady's reasons why one man is the killer and another isn't had me scratching my head how she came to that conclusion. "Someone who kills a dog wouldn't bury a dog". Yeah, it's quite funny. In the scene involving the death of one of the ladies that causes the paranoia to erupt, you actually catch a glimpse of the killer's face. I take by mistake, but again it shouldn't be too hard to know the killer's identity from the get-go. This does take away from the supposed suspense.

Before that happens, you got to sit through some tepid, overwrought melodramatics with soap-like acting by the likes of Joan Hackett, Anjanette Comer, Stefanie Powers and Julie Sommars. Denise Nicholas is the odd one out though, in what is a composed turn until taking someone's life. Everyone pretty much breaks down mentally discarding their happy façades revealing their most inner regrets. Prepare your senses for overload, mainly your ears. Not for just the dialogues, the Pyshco-esque music score also adds to the pain. After the first death it picks up by becoming hysterical in the actions (throwing rocks at the killer strangling their friend, but in doing so nearly knocking her out instead) and taut in the build-up, as the four remaining ladies hold up in the house with the two guys locked out. Ted ("HANG 'EM HIGH" & "MAGANUM FORCE") Post's directorial style is plain, but efficient with moments of effective camera placement.

The line between the giallo and 70s made-for-TV movies is a very thin one and this is one film that easily could be defined as an American cousin of that native Italian - by way of Germany and England - form.

Five young women have their five-year college reunion only to discover that life hasn't worked out well for all of them. Nonetheless, they try to enjoy their getaway on an isolated island that has no phone service, which seems to offer them the perfect escape.

They are Lucy (Anjanette Comer, who was in The Baby, which was also directed by this film's director, Ted Post), Dorian (Joan Hackett, Bobby's mother in Dead of Night), Joy (Denise Nicholas, TV's In the Heat of the Night), Gloria (Stefanie Powers!) and Mary Grace (Julie Sommars). Bradford Dillman and Robert Conrad play the captain of the boat that takes the women to their vacation spot and the caretaker of the mansion where they stay. Guess what? One of them is a maniac.

This was produced by Aaron Spelling and, as we said above, directed by Ted Post, who always turns in material well above what it should be. It was written by Marc Norman (Shakespeare In Love), Walter Black (who wrote for the Planet of the Apes TV series) and Larry Gordon, who also wrote The Devil's 8.

Don't ask what made me want to watch this, I'm just a sucker for bad cinema. I was somehow able to stay focused enough on the story, with all of it's terrible acting from a basically an unknown cast. Corny dialogue all the way, horribly boring character development, I was begging for this cast to start getting offed after the first fifteen minutes, but no, 'Five Desperate Women' drags us along for something like fifty minutes, and still nothing much has happened by that point. Our body-count is a poor one: one guy near the beginning, the dog, and thankfully the one woman who they somehow managed to write as being expertly more annoying than the rest of them.

I really don't know what it is about this film. It's got terrible writing, mediocre production, bottom barrel acting, predictable as all hell, but it still somehow managed to keep my attention, because the whole time I could just feel they were going to try and come at us with that clever twist near the end. Even the clever twist at the end is so predictable you can see it within the first half hour of the movie. My friend who I viewed this movie with simply just said "That one was bad. Probably one of the worst I've seen". I was laughing my a$$ off. Call me a sucker for bad cinema, but this one certainly does take the cake more than anything else I've viewed in a while.

FIVE DESPERATE WOMEN ---- 4/10

The plot for "Five Desperate Women" is one you probably couldn't use today. After all, the notion of five ladies stuck on a lonely island with a psychotic murderer AND unable to call for help is tough to believe today...they could just use their cellphones to get help! My wife and I went on an African photo safari a couple years ago...and even there we had great wi-fi service! So younger folks might be perplexed by all this! But apparently this is what's happened in this film...and the murderer has also blown up the boat...their only means of escape from this very isolated vacation spot.

So is this any good? Not really. The film has several things working against it. First, too much time is spent with the lady friends talking...and talking...and talking. Plus the ladies seemed to have almost nothing in common and yet are supposed to be old friends. Second, there appear to be only two possibilities for who is the killer...and there wasn't a lot of suspense because of this. Third, and most importantly, the big finale is just ineptly made! When the killer is known for sure and is caught strangling one of the women, the others just jump about and take the longest time to offer any real help. Then, after conking him on the head, one announces, after examining him for all of 1/2 second that 'he's dead'! Huh?! Sloppy and dumb...this is one of the weakest "ABC Movie of the Week" installments I've ever seen.

This one will take a lot of patience to get into as most of the women just spend their time caterwauling with annoying voices over anything and everything, and that's before the poor dog is found dead and a psychotic escapee from a mental institution begins terrorizing them. Joan Hackett did go on to get an Oscar nomination and Stefanie Powers found popularity on TV, so they can rest on their Laurels but as for their joining along with the other three, it's a painful sound to the ears that will require strong medication to get over. Anjajette Comer, Julie Sommars anf Denise Nicholas join the other two, and altogether, they don't seem like they were really all that close in college even though they claim to be. Of the five, only Nicholas seems to have any real intelligence, and her voice is the least painful to listen to. The film is chock-full of cliches and is better watched either on mute or on fast-forward. In other words, not even worth bothering with.