ONe from the desk of David F. Friedman, ‘The Defilers’ is an early 60s ‘Roughie’ that, for the time would have almost certainly had its share of controversy, and while the film itself to modern audiences may seem tame, the topics covered are as relevent today as they were over 60 years ago.

The film follows two young bachelor boys ‘Carl’ and ‘Jaimerson’, the pair are living for the moment, driving fast cars, following the latest fashions and scmoozing with as many ladies as the 60s will allow (which is apparently quite a lot!) Jaimerson is going somewhat steady with one of the girls within the pairs clique. But Carl prefers to ‘hunt’ his prey…quite literally it would seem…See…Carl is very much into doing stuff ‘For Kicks’, here translated as ‘He wants to do whatever gives him an endorphine rush and woe betide anyone who comes between him and achieving that’.

To that end, while hes the perfect picture of a earnest bachelor boy to his family and looser friends, in private, he’s a sadist, who lures young girls into a rented basement dwelling on the outskirts of town to do perverse BDSM activities on them. But its slowly not becoming enough, and after a night of smoking dope with Jaimerson, he confesses to him that he needs a bigger thrill, something REALLY ‘far out’. To the extent that he decides the only thing that’ll saciate his urges, is to kidnap a poor unsuspecting girl and keep her as his ‘owned’ captive, to do with as he pleases.

Jaimersons VERY reluctant, but Carl is so unrelenting and forceful on the issue that he eventually goes along with it. Their target? a young woman they’ve recently been introduced to through a mutual acquaintence called ‘Jayne’…And…under veil of darkness, the pair go to Jaynes complex, lure her into their car on the promise of going to a hip new party…and take her back to the basement room to be their love slave/animal.

And im still kind of struggling to get my true feelings on this film settled, because there are elements that it handles very well, and elements that are absolutely and truely dire…

Script wise, theres very little here honestly, to the point that the first half of the film is almost entirely silent for dialogue barring occasional overdubbed lines. we spend extended sequences watching the boys and their followers frolic around on beaches, we take extended tours of the LA strip, of the lad lounging about smoking or reading…its so incredibly padded that realistically if you just took the plot beats of the first half out and stitched them together, I think you’d struggle to hit 10 minutes. And while time has made this movie a veritable time capsule of mid 60s LA…that wasnt really the intention of the production.

when they arnt doing extended walking or lounging seqeuences, its ‘nudie cutie’ or ‘roughie’ fodder, either girls frolicking around in bikinis topless, or Carl administering spankings or making love (offscreen) to women in various states of undress. I realise that thats the main reason most folks showed up to see this film. but you’ve got to imagine when your films only an hour and eight minutes long and the first half an hour is 2 heavily censored sex scenes, 3 extended walking and driving scenes (intercut with some nudity) and about 7 minutes of ACTUAL plot sandwhiched in there, it does make for a bit of a dull viewing experience.

That being said, I think once Carls ‘kidnapping’ idea enters the story around the halfway point, things really do pick up and the film actually begins to build up a decent pace, ending about as solidly as this film could have ended. but whether you have the stamina to make it through the opening half for a kind of mid, but rewarding second half is really down to user preference.

Tonally, the films seedy, grubby and frankly quite grim in places, but then, the films called ‘The Defilers’ and in the first 10 minutes one of the characters says something to the effect of ‘Women only have one role in life, to pleasure men, and if they dont want to, you can just take it.’…Its a film that features the excessive abuse and rape of women, who are seen (at least in part) to enjoy it. And at times, even in 2025, it genuinely comes across as upsetting. And while they do try to balance things out a bit in the finale…I do think this is a film you’ll either need a very particular headspace, or a VERY particular fetish to enjoy.

The characters are a bit thin on the ground detail wise. Our boys get solid back stories with families, history and a decent arc running across the runtime. But the ladies of this movie? They basically get nothing…they exist to be molested, and apart from maybe the flimsiest of throwaway lines to explain how they came into the world of Carl and Jaimerson, they dont really have lives beyond their entry and exist point of the movie. Something that I feel is both indicative of its time in history, but also I feel why this film is so troubling, Friendmans writing style here doesnt really indicate he has a fondness for women, andd while he definitely makes a point of showing that our main characters are DEFINITELY evil in their actions, he doesnt really give the female characters any kind of depth or growth to show he cares what really happens to them. Its very much a film where the guys are shown to be immoral, and the girls are there to be chased in their underware.

The direction here is pretty nice, borrowing from the growing ‘new wave’ scene of the time, this movies all for fast cuts, handheld work and experimental camera and lighting work. With Carl’s basement scenes in particular being a definite highlight as we go for a more frenzied camera work combined with chiascuro lighting that helps emphasise the dank dinginess of the whole thing.

The cine too is razor, though I feel here that the experimentation occasionally comes to the detriment of the production, its clear they wanted to play fast and loose on filming the scenes, but that sometimes badly impacts composition or scene structuring, things like ‘the line’ feel like optional extras for this production. Which in some ways I feel accidentally improves the films tone and vibe given its plotting…But on the other hand does make it at times feel a bit unpolished.

Performance wise its pretty much a two person race here, with Byron Mabe as Carl bringing a wonderful level of psycopathy to the role, flitting between blind and silent aggression and a soft spoken calmness as he tries to force these women to do what he wants. He’s genuinely terrifying at times in this and is absolutely a reason to check this film out, if for nothing else. Mai Jansson plays the boys kidnapp-ee Jane Collins, and again, she absolutely aces playing a vulnerable and terrified individual captive to these men and their diabolical plans. I thought she came across as very naturalistic, particularly for mid 60s cinema, and she really sold the character to me, giving a good emotional range and bringing a solid physicality to the performance.

The rest of the cast dont really have the same level of naturalism unfortunatley, witha lot of the performers sinking into a ‘hey Daddi-o’ style hip beatnick schtick that does overstay its welcome by the end, a victim of its time almost certainly…But one that I couldnt really forgive.

If you like ‘Roughie’ pictures, ‘The Defilers’ almost certainly will scratch an itch for you. For me? I wasnt quite so impressed, While I enjoyed this one more than some of Friedmans other works, those good moments are just far too few and far between for me to really solidly enjoy this one, or recommend it really. a good example of the genre. I feel like I will revisit this one again at some point. But its a flawed and unpleasent work thats probably going to have to be watched next time under a haze of booze at 2am.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-defilers/