Worth It!

DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE-1980-In this psycho-slasher horror flick the underrated Nicolas Worth plays Kirk Smith a deranged Vietnam vet/photographer who strangles women then takes pictures of them. He even calls a radio psychiatrist (Flo Gerrish) and talks with a Hispanic accent. Later he later convinces a prostitute to call the station and while she's talking to the doctor he kills her. James Westmoreland and Ben Frank play two wise ass detectives trying to solve the murders. I think they were trying to imitate Starskyand Hutch but they are more like Dumb and Dumber.

Worth (who died in 2007 at age 69) gives a tour de force performance, crying, laughing and talking to himself in a mirror. In a stand-out scene he talks to his "father" about how he beat up a pimp. The rest of the acting (made up mostly of TV actors and actresses) isn't as interesting and the story is quite sick (most of the victims die topless) and drags when Worth's not around but his performance makes it worth seeing. (No pun intended)

This was the only movie made by director Robert Hammer. The worst part is that while Smith is a crazed vicious killer the two cops act like jerks and aren't very likable.

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