AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Kirandeep Yoder
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
TheBlueHairedLawyer
Private Parts isn't at all scary, but it's really disturbing and creepy. The intro is a film of rapidly flashing, glittering rainbow lights... well, it was 1972, maybe it's an LSD thing. The movie features a teenage girl named Cheryl as the main character; she's a runaway from Ohio who has moved out to L.A. with her best friend, Judy. After Cheryl is caught watching Judy having sex, she takes off running to find an available room at her fat Aunt Martha's decrepit motel. Aunt Martha is old and strict and has various people staying on the same floor as Martha. There's a gay priest, a drunk and next door to Cheryl's new room there's a mysterious tenant who lives in the dark, watching through holes in the walls and taking photographs. All's still for the most part going okay until people end up murdered.This is a typical 1970's movie, with hippie kids, trippy background music and various odd characters. If you like horror movies or like to laugh at the old, low-budget ones, you'd probably like this one. Some of the characters are just so strange, I haven't seen a movie as odd as this in a long time.
Wizard-8
I think that when "Private Parts" was first released in 1972, viewers at the time almost certainly found it to be very strange and perverse. Seeing it more than forty years later, it doesn't have that impact. Oh, it is kind of bizarre even today, but it seems somewhat restrained compared to some movies coming out today. Despite that, I did find the movie for the most part to be entertaining. It's well acted by its no- name cast, and thanks in part to cinematographer (and future director) Andrew Davis, it looks pretty good despite a low budget. Most importantly, the movie for the most part manages to keep your attention and makes you wonder just how things will be wrapped up. I will admit that the second half of the movie does have a few dead spots, and the attempted twist ending is kind of a letdown. But for the most part, the movie does get your attention. If you are a fan of unconventional 1970s movies, this movie is more likely than not a good bet.
pesicev-macak
Unusual movie, not quite horror but also not quite black comedy either. As another reviewer said, it resembles Psycho or Peeping Tom with it's focus on psychology and even relentless presence of camera - but those themes aren't explored further, they're there just to add another touch of weirdness. On the other hand, film is also one part exploitation, with some nude scenes to oogle here and there. Psychology is the most interesting part: Cheryl is written well as a needy but neglected teenager who is creeped out by the neighbor photographer, but too flattered to resist - and what little glimpses of Aunt Martha and George we have, are interesting. Sadly, acting is below average, except for Lucille Benson who is quite good, leading actress Ayn Ruymen in particular speaks her lines as if she hears them for the first time (which adds to the exploitation feel). The ending is at the same time great and unsatisfying. The scene is cut away in the middle of final fight, and next ten minutes we are left wondering what happened next, while director taunts us with daylit scenes of two cops searching the premises - very effective way to present aftermath. On the other hand, a lot is left half-explained, and this film in particular doesn't benefit from that. The final appearance of Cheryl is a pretty cliché final twist, one that you see coming, but hope that director will have more imagination. It's an unusual and quirky film that many will find interesting, but don't expect a masterpiece.
Woodyanders
The late, great, sorely missed Paul ("Death Race 2000," "Eating Raoul") Bartel cranks up the delectably deranged, yet still oddly compelling psychosexual insanity to twelve plus in this alarmingly aberrant and off-center 70's horror exploitation oddity. Sweet, pretty and naive teenage runaway Cheryl (a charming performance by the adorably waifish Ayn Ruymen) gets tossed out onto the streets after she's caught watching her sister doing just what you think with her boyfriend. Cheryl winds up seeking room and board at the King Edward Hotel, a seedy ramshackle Los Angeles fleabag dive that's run by wacky Aunt Martha (a delightfully dotty Lucille Benson; the batty old lady gas station proprietor in "Duel"). Cheryl soon finds out that the place is a veritable haven for hardcore unhinged freaks: Among the hotel's regulars are a pathetic drunk, a senile old bag, a jolly gay priest with a taste for chains, leather and muscular young men, and the shy, reticent George (handsome, sulky John Ventantonio), a photographer who snaps pictures of young couples making love in the park and spies on Cheryl through peepholes in the walls. Why, even dear Aunt Martha underneath her uptight conservative veneer proves to be an absolute kook who has a pet rat and enjoys attending funerals of complete strangers. Director Bartel draws the viewer into this bizarre scenario by deftly creating an arrestingly sleazy'n'sordid weirded-out scuzzball skid-row atmosphere that's both deviant and disturbing in comparable measure. Moreover, the twisted script by Philip Kearney and Les Rendelstein offers a wondrous wealth of severe depravity: fetishism, voyeurism and even transvestitism all rear their kinky heads in this sublimely sicko story of repression, perversion and obsession that culminates in a real dilly of a crazy climax. The film reaches its gloriously warped apex during the astonishing sequence in which George uses a hypodermic needle to inject his blood into a water-filled blow-up sex doll with a photo of Cheryl's face pasted on it. Andrew Davis' stark, shadowy cinematography and Hugo Friedhofer's marvelously jazzy and brooding Bernard Hermannesque score further enhance the prevailing mood of divinely full-bore dementia to be relished in this one-of-a-kind trashy treat.
