The Honeymoon Killers (1969)
The film stars Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stoler as Ray Fernandez and Martha Beck. Doris Roberts has a part playing Bunny. Also starring Mary Jane Higby as Janet Fay.
This is an intense, often grotesque film based on the true story of serial killers Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck who meet through a lonely-hearts correspondence club. Director Leonard Kastle creates a sickening atmosphere of acute sexual psychosis in The Honeymoon Killers , that forces you to feel repulsed by this pair’s Folie à deux.
Ray is a swarthy playboy, rough around the edges and a devious sociopath. Martha is ‘morbidly’ obese (and I use the term specifically tailored to her character), obsessive, paranoid and maniacally possessive of Ray.
The two concoct a dangerously horrific plot to lure lonely women into going out with Ray, until he proposes marriage. All the while pretending that Martha is his sister, a nurse. The plan is to con the women’s into turning over their entire savings, and then make them disappear. Neither Ray, nor Martha show any remorse of trace of humanity, within their claustrophobic narcissistic love affair. They are ruthless and brutal to no end.
The film is bleak, grimy and unashamed to show the ugliness of human nature. While it is unrelenting in it’s frankness, it’s oddly compelling to watch Lo Bianco and Stoler do their thing.
“One of the most bizarre episodes in the annals of American Crime.”
“Love is a bitch…called Martha.”
Happy Trailers- MonsterGirl
I have been slowly working my way through my library’s Criterion collection and watched this one a while back. I really liked this film a lot. Maybe I’m a weirdo, but I had empathy for Martha.
I noticed that they never say what happened to the woman he took to the lake for a picnic.