Many will have first been introduced to this tacky proto-slasher thanks to the extraordinarily tawdry trailer (“there’s a tit maniac on the loose – a booby snatcher”) featured on the compilation tape The Best of Sex and Violence (1981). Frankly, the film was never going to live up to that masterpiece of tasteless salesmanship (the version linked below isn’t the bd taste version on The Best of Sex and Violence but it’s still anything but safe for work) and sure enough when you do finally get to see it, it turns out to be a listless exploiter that doesn’t even rise to the not-exactly-high expectations of the genre.

A group of people gather on a Caribbean island for a combination of swingers weekend and sexual therapy workshop, “an exercise in liberated living.” Virginal Lola (Joan Prather) harbours a rape fantasy that she hopes can be fulfilled by the handsome but dim-witted Blue (Jason Ledger); nurse Allison (Claudia Jennings) is there to deal with her fear of commitment, pursued by her possessive Neanderthal boyfriend Bud (Ed Blessington) while the nerdy George (Greg Mullavey) battles his chronic shyness. Shannon (Cheri Howell) is a nymphomaniac, Denise is an air-headed actress and the somewhat creepy Dr Stevens (Wayne Dvorek) spouts meaningless platitudes as the group’s therapist. After some frankly questionable encounter sessions, the group is slowly picked off by a mad killer – the aforementioned trailer, which is so much more trashy fun than the film itself, does a good job of disguising the identity of the killer and to be fair you’re unlikely to guess who it is.

Also known as Bloody Friday and, inexplicably, Private School, this nonsense is as dull as the proverbial ditch water. After an opening murder by harpoon nothing of any note happens for the next 50 minutes or so as we hang out with our sex starved/mad cast who regale us with all sorts of tedious chit chat and some very low-key titillation. The dialogue sometimes feels improvised by a cast who can’t really think of anything worthwhile to say. There’s some psychobabble culled from the pages of a cheap self-help manual, endless talk about sexual hang-ups and fantasies and a lengthy dance sequence. Things perk up a bit in the final act after a murder with a garden weeder but by then you’ve probably given up on this idiocy.

It’s hard to say much about The Single Girls as so very little actually happens. It’s low on those essential staples of exploitation cinema. Sex and violence – there’s some small splashes of blood late in the day – and the characters are either unremarkable or positively hateful. The men are all middle-aged, brutes or social inadequates, the women are sexpots who probably wouldn’t look at any of them in real life.

Chief among the female contingent of the cast is Claudia Jennings, but even she can bring little to enliven this mess – she stuck around with producers and directors Beverly and Ferd Sebastian for the more fun ‘Gator Bait (1973). The other familiar faces belong to Cheri Howell (she was one of the “furniture girls” in Soylent Green (1973) and appeared in Sisters of Death (1976)), Robyn Hilton (later Miss Stein in Blazing Saddles (1974) and Karen in Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975)) and Joan Prather (who went on to appear in Big Bad Mama (1974) and The Devil’s Rain (1975)). None of them are particularly distinguished here.

They’re expected to carry off some silly comedy interludes (they can’t) and are constantly defeated by the awful direction of the Sebastians. One scene of Allison and George talking on some rocks is filmed by a static camera at such a great distance that it could honestly be anyone sitting there. Technical shoddiness abounds and the only thing one might find some small crumb of comfort from is the annoyingly catchy title song, Ms. America, written by Bobby Hart and Danny Janssen. Hart, along with writing partner Tommy Boyce, had written a number of the most famous songs heard in the TV series The Monkees (1966-1968), including the theme song and the hit Last Train to Clarksville.

The Single Girls is a poorly scripted mess that could have been hailed a precursor of the slasher films that started to proliferate later in the decade had it actually been any good. But it isn’t and the fact that it’s vanished into a sort of obscurity tell you everything you need to know.