A grindhouse probably shouldn’t be a vintage movie fan’s home, but it’s a good place to visit occasionally. Intermittent low budget flicks are always reminders of what truly good cinema is worth. The Single Girls, for which you see an uncredited poster above, is pure grindhouse trash about a disparate assortment of guests focused on personal exploration, liberation, and all those sorts of things while at a Caribbean resort. Unfortunately there’s a murderer in the mix. The first victim is speargunned during the opening credits, and we’re off and bleeding.
Some of the “half clad, all bad!” resort guests include Cheri Howell, cutie Joan Prather, and the captivating Jean Marie Ingels, but we were interested in this mainly for cult star Claudia Jennings. She doesn’t get much to work with, and really never did, but this proto-slasher flick is even more threadbare than usual. While the script takes care to introduce an array of plausible suspects, none of this exposition is interesting. Romantic couples who saw the movie at drive-ins could have rounded third base and slid in to home without missing any crucial plot points.
But even if they interrupted themselves long enough to wipe a clear spot on their steamy windshields, we don’t think’d have enjoyed what they saw. The mystery aspect of the film is a dud. The tension is minimal. The titillation and nudity aren’t stimulating. Everything is just flat. However, directors Beverly and Ferd Sebastian would improve with their next effort ‘Gator Bait, going from humble beginnings here to an acknowledged grindhouse classic later—with Jennings in the lead again, by the way. You can skip ahead to that. The Single Girls premiered today in 1973.
