TIFFANY BOLLING AND ANDREW PRINE IN 'THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS'

Double-Feature Art for Bonnie's Kids and THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS from 1974 Rates: ****

John Peyer's extremely severe slasher flick THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS uses the out of the frying pan and into the fire concept as three different titular pinup go through many ringers in what's a three-part semi-anthology where serial killing Andrew Prine basically crashes a trio of vignettes...

The first is the most entertaining, and sadistic: where hard-working nurse (and former centerfold still paying the bills) Jaime Lyn Bauer meets seemingly affable hippie girl Janet Wood, who... when they're holed-up in a rural hilltop manor... invites three hippie friends inspired by The Manson Family, eerily attacking and almost raping Bauer...

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS

Leading to a motel where, after a frantic running-through-the-woods escape (later borrowed in the entire FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise), manager Aldo Ray attempts another rape that's curbed by Prine, who had been initially cranking her with the creepy, religious-zealot warnings that he wants to save her life (for having posed nude)...

Which is the key line spoken to all primary victims, next to Jennifer Ashley in the second tale: she's a laidback model who winds up in a beach/clifftop mansion photo-shoot with several other models, run by temperamental boss Francine York chewing out swarthy agent Ray Danton, attempting what feels like a Tennessee Williams melodrama had there not been Prine, sneaking around with a knife and ultimately providing the highest number of victims...

Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS

In what's also the most fulfilling and fleshed-out story where the exceptionally vulnerable Ashley (always the cutest girl surrounded by exploitation-cinema beauties, here providing the most suspenseful anticipation) deserved more overall screen-time while bubbly/offbeat Playboy Playmate Ruthy Ross steals scenes until the rushed massacre (also including Playmate Kitty Carl)...

Leading to Tiffany Bolling, who (initially attacked by rapist navy boys like Jaime Lyn Bauer was by those hippies) is basically the final girl's final girl, with the resiliently assertive attitude of a victim at the end of her own feature-length slasher flick and, although this third story is the most oblique leading up, the climactic face-off against Prine... shot at an actual post-forest-fire/purgatory-like location replete with scorched earth and burnt/barren trees... is one of the greatest sendoffs for a horror-genre killer that truly deserved the inevitable violently-slashing payback — threefold.

Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Jaime Lyn Bauer in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 1)

Janet Wood in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 1)

Janet Wood with Tallie Cochrane in Centerfold Girls with Teda Bracci and Dennis Olivieri (Story 1)

Jaime Lyn Bauer in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS

Janet Wood with Tallie Cochrane in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 1)

Janet Wood with Tallie Cochrane in Centerfold Girls with Teda Bracci and Dennis Olivieri (Story 1)

Ruthy Ross in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Francine York, Ruthy Ross and John Denos in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Francine York, Ruthy Ross and John Denos in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS with Ruthy Ross (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Jennifer Ashley in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Francine York in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Connie Strickland in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Connie Strickland and Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Connie Strickland in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS with Jeremy Slate (Story 3)

Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Anneka Di Lorenzo in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Andrew Prine in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS with Andrew Prine (Story 3)

Tiffany Bolling in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Andrew Prine in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 3)

Poster from THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS

Poster from THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS

Ray Danton in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Ruthy Ross in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Ruthy Ross and Kitty Carl in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)

Kitty Carl in THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS (Story 2)