Impulse (1974)

 

Director: William Grefé

Screenplay: Tony Crechales

Cast: William Shatner as Matt Stone; Ruth Roman as Julia Marstow; Jennifer Bishop as Ann Moy; Kim Nicholas as Tina Moy; James Dobson as Clarence; Harold Sakata as Karate Pete; Marcia Knight as Helen

Canon Fodder

 

People like you should be ground up and made into dog food!

Black and white cinematography introduces us to the past, post World War II American, where an older woman is being romanced in her lounge by William Kerwin of Blood Feast (1963) fame. Beau to her, he shows her the samurai katana he acquired in the war and is about to woo her with until her son stops them. Kerwin shows a rare nasty side in his small scene, as son proceeds to use that katana to stab him.

Said son will become William Shatner, five years past the Canadian actor shooting the last scene of the original Star Trek series. This is a busy period for him until Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), full of television and genre films, where Shatner transitions to playing Matt Stone, a man who seduces older woman and, in his psychosis, kills them even if it was just in a fit of mania. Shatner made The Intruder (1962) with Roger Corman where he played a racist, but it is odd to find him here in a William Grefé genre film, becoming part of the history of Hollywood and television actors finding their way into exploitation films, like one of Rita Haywood's final roles being in Grefé's The Naked Zoo (1970). Ironically Impulse, in Grefé's trait of making films closer to traditional mainstream cinema, comes off as an exploitation film you could imagine either as a TV movie of the time or an old Hollywood b-movie crime flick, a thriller where we learn how wound up like a coil Shatner's character is when, when caught by his older girlfriend with women from a Go-Go club, he has a switch causing him to throttle her to death in her car, acting like a child afterwards when she realises she is dead. This introduction to him adds a cherry on top of the cake when he pushes the car into the river they are near, Grefé's willingness to have flair seen as he has a first person shot, with camera entering the water, from the dashboard as it rolls into the river and starts to sink.

Shatner is the kind of figure, playing Matt Stone, that when he runs over a puppy, implied and cutting to a separate shot of a dog (hopefully) acting dead with fake blood on, he just continues driving and blames dogs being left to run into the road. It is an awkward introduction to Tina (Kim Nicholas), a young girl he randomly picks up in his car at the time, dressed in her red sleeved and white dress like she wandered out of an Alice in Wonderland adaptation, who is also the daughter to a young widow Ann (Jennifer Bishop), owner of a store who he will meet up and start his con romance with for her money.

Impulse is more of a thriller than horror, though it fascinates to see Grefé in an urban environment than the Everglades, of mid seventies fashion and design than sixties novelty rock and striped shirts, nary an airboat in sight, of Sunflower wallpaper, long patterned dresses and bric-a-brac similar to that found in my late grandmother's house on my father's side. It would also work as a film of this era from Hollywood let alone at a lower budget, especially as a large part of the narrative is arguably a melodrama, as Julia is a widowed thirty plus mother who wishes to move on in her life but with a daughter fearing her father is forgotten already, lashing out in ways like breaking a precious china plate. This is a huge leap forwards from Sting of Death (1966) for Grefé, a figure who wished to make films closer to traditional movies than peers like Herschell Gordon Lewis, but with the grit around the edges as an independent production adding more. Everything in Impulse feels a lot more stained and lurid even if Impulse is gunning as much for its drama as it is the thriller content.

Shatner is a huge factor to Impulse's qualities. He is a good actor, one however infamous for his habit for overemphasising mannerisms which coined "Shatner-esque" acting, not a method actor but expressing in emphasis in dialogue, manner of speech, and when infamously trying for a music career, spoken poetry singing for The Transformed Man (1968). Dropped here, he is an unpredictable influence when, even if Impulse has a lot more for its story and dialogue, exploitation films unlike this one could coast on their tropes and exploitation content than unpredictable acting and detailed plot. Shatner commits to wall chewing, but whilst this is seen as a low for some in his career, it does make Impulse more rewarding. Infamously Grefé kept a take in where Shatner, in his many exaggerated moments when provoked or manic, farted for real mid-performance. It is not as over-the-top when it happens as that reads. It also makes complete sense, ultimately seen as a grotesque and violent parasite of masculinity, chasing a little girl around a funeral parlor to silence her, exploitation women for their through their money through the promise of romance, and trying to drown someone in their own fish tank. Able to show charisma to woo women, he is also a giant man-child who can suddenly bark at random people like a mad man¹.

Adding to this territory's weird connective nature, crossing with "respectable cinema", is that Harold Sakata, known for Oddjob from Goldfinger (1964) has a brief role as Karate Pete, a fellow older con artist who knows Matt and demands to have a cut of the money he is acquiring from Ann and her older female friend Julia (Ruth Roman). Arguably, whether his acting is good or not, Impulse has a far more rewarding role for the former pro wrestler and Olympic weightlifter Sakata, and I say this as someone who holds, whilst fun, that Goldfinger's status in the original run of James Bond films is arguably overhyped. Sakata here, getting speaking lines rather than as a mute with a razored bowler hat, gets in his little time in Impulse a lot of fun things to do. Carrying a pipe, and driving around in an RV branded with "Karate Pete", he is a nice shot of tension to the film, a man who can smash a bedside cabinet to pieces, even nearing his fifties, with his bare hands if you piss him off and refuse to pour him a drink. His role is sadly small, but he will return to Grefé's world in Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), and it does lead to conflict between Sakata and William Shatner at a car wash at night, involving a noose attached on a pulley, jazz rock on the soundtrack, and Sakata being chased through a car wash, turned on, by Shatner in a car. It is the one lurid, grotty exploitation aspect of the film, but by God, it is entertaining to see². On the midway point in Grefé's career, as he would by 1978 close out his career and start making promotional films for Bacardi, with Shatner in the lead role for the first, Impulse is of note as he developed quite a bit over eight years to this film from the initial monster films I first saw. I also found Impulse rewarding to see and memorable as a lurid yet compelling thriller, a film in Grefé's work which does lean the most to the lurid Florida made movies of the era but with his more structurally fleshed out production style helping considerably.

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1) [Spoiler] The fart happens in Stone's death scene at the end too, thematically perfect as a death rattle for a pathetic figure of evil. [Spoilers End]

2) The one aspect which, whilst should have not happened, adds more to this sequence even if a morbid touch is knowing Harold Sakata nearly got hanged for real by accident, as documented in the William Grefé documentary They Came from the Swamp: The Films of William Grefé (2016). An incident due to the original noose mechanism being tampered with behind its creator's back, and with Shatner having to save Sakata in the moment, this sequence has gained a greater madness, again with respect for poor Sakata. Especially when the documentary even has footage of when Shatner realises something goes wrong and has to help him.