Crackerjack thriller here, a deeply twisted film about a budding 12 year old psychopath's obsession with her own father and willingness to kill off anyone who comes between them. Tony Franciosa is good as the befuddled, utterly clueless father, Sybil Danning even better as the sex maven MILF single parent whom he is in love with, and the show is completely stolen by Isabelle Mejias as young Julie.
One thing I kept wondering about through the film: Does Julie know that her feelings for her father are twisted, and that her actions are wrong if not outright evil? The film scores points by not letting the viewer find out whether she actually knows right from wrong. Hitchcock would have been impressed by the plotting, especially the killing of a young child by a sex murderer who is rewarded for playing a part in young Julie's scheme by being set up for his own execution. The ending is also inevitable, or rather the only ending that was possible given the material. Anything else would have been a cop-out, and there is a knowing glint in someone's eye when it's all over to suggest that they didn't have a problem with how everything worked out.
One aspect of the film that's very interesting is the early 1980s polyester culture in which the film is set, which upon further research proves to be both Toronto, Canada and then West Berlin, Germany, seamlessly edited together into a strange, unwelcoming urban hell. Everything looks cold (the film is set in the winter), unhealthy (at one point a character stops by a Burger King to scarf down a Whopper on the run), impersonal (a key scene is set in a crowded shopping mall) and hopelessly tacky (the stairwell in Franciosa's mansion is festooned with a mass of framed pictures arranged in a way that makes them impossible to be seen individually) in a way that feels unique to the time period.
You also couldn't make this movie today. It's too sick, twisted, amoral and politically incorrect. Another commenter nails it perfectly when referring to the film as "Bratsploitation", and modern viewers will be hard pressed to equate the film with anything later than THE GOOD SON, which lacks the psycho-sexual tension that raises JULIE DARLING's quease level beyond mere camp. Recommended as a double bill with William Grefe's IMPULSE with William Shatner. Creepy.
8/10
One thing I kept wondering about through the film: Does Julie know that her feelings for her father are twisted, and that her actions are wrong if not outright evil? The film scores points by not letting the viewer find out whether she actually knows right from wrong. Hitchcock would have been impressed by the plotting, especially the killing of a young child by a sex murderer who is rewarded for playing a part in young Julie's scheme by being set up for his own execution. The ending is also inevitable, or rather the only ending that was possible given the material. Anything else would have been a cop-out, and there is a knowing glint in someone's eye when it's all over to suggest that they didn't have a problem with how everything worked out.
One aspect of the film that's very interesting is the early 1980s polyester culture in which the film is set, which upon further research proves to be both Toronto, Canada and then West Berlin, Germany, seamlessly edited together into a strange, unwelcoming urban hell. Everything looks cold (the film is set in the winter), unhealthy (at one point a character stops by a Burger King to scarf down a Whopper on the run), impersonal (a key scene is set in a crowded shopping mall) and hopelessly tacky (the stairwell in Franciosa's mansion is festooned with a mass of framed pictures arranged in a way that makes them impossible to be seen individually) in a way that feels unique to the time period.
You also couldn't make this movie today. It's too sick, twisted, amoral and politically incorrect. Another commenter nails it perfectly when referring to the film as "Bratsploitation", and modern viewers will be hard pressed to equate the film with anything later than THE GOOD SON, which lacks the psycho-sexual tension that raises JULIE DARLING's quease level beyond mere camp. Recommended as a double bill with William Grefe's IMPULSE with William Shatner. Creepy.
8/10