The Love Butcher

In a macabre tale of revenge and descent into madness, "The Love Butcher" (1975) tells the twisted story of Caleb, a lonely, physically crippled middle-aged gardener who transforms into his alter ego Lester after being pushed too far. As Lester, he commits a series of brutal murders in an affluent Los Angeles neighborhood, taunting the police and a local reporter with a gruesome game of cat and mouse. With its sleazy murder theme pulling against a broadly satirical depiction of the killer as super-nerd turned super-stud, this proto-slasher film is a chilling exploration of the darker corners of the human psyche.