Poor Pretty Eddie

It opens at the University of Georgia football stadium, where famous African-American singer Liz Wetherly sings the national anthem before the game and then gets into her fancy foreign car and in a voiceover says: Look, I have two weeks before my next concert. Now I’m going to get in my car and drive until I find a nice, quiet hole to crawl into. Who knew that was actually the plot?

The harried Liz finds her perfect hideaway spot when her car breaks down on some backwoods Southern country road. It’s a rundown hunting lodge with cabins for rent, where Liz rents a room while her car is being repaired by the inn’s sinister-looking handyman Keno. What should have taken only a short time turns into days as Liz becomes a virtual prisoner in this bucolic shithole due to the manipulations of the psychotic innkeeper manager, Eddie, an Elvis impersonator with showbiz aspirations. Eddie is the crazed younger lover of the motel’s whiny owner Bertha, who was an ex-stripper and is possessive of her Eddie. Eddie is attracted to Liz and also wants her to further his showbiz aspirations. Which leads to him holding Liz as a virtual prisoner and raping and torturing her. —Ozu’s World of Movie Reviews