The movie with elements of sadism and several hard sexual scenes and based on real events, when in the late 1970s in Greenwich Village, on the outskirts of New York City, there were several murders, the victims of which were people of non-traditional orientation. Despite this, the main interest for the viewer is the moral state of the main character, rather than solving the crimes. They are presented in the movie as a kind of hidden community of people, restless in search of pleasure. They are always on the move: in and out of erotic clubs, underground garages, rented rooms, individual booths in sex shops. Steve Burns, a young heterosexual officer in the New York Police Department, is recruited into the homicide unit to solve these crimes. The victims of the maniac were “them,” regulars at leather, sadomasochistic and dominator clubs, so Burns had to work “deep undercover” and pretend to be the same in order to be bait for the killer. Burns was chosen because of his outward resemblance to the victims: he too has dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes. He had to, in fact, alone in practice to learn the complex rules and language of this small world. Because of his work, he gradually becomes a different person, seeing his girlfriend Nancy less and less often. At first, the atmosphere reigning in this world seems repulsive and shocking to him. However, he gradually realizes the power that attracts him to live in a primal male universe. The maniac usually met men, tied them up and then dismembered them. He is a tall and skinny man who is weighed down with chains, he wears sunglasses, a biker’s kosuka and a hat. The audience later learns that he is a university graduate and is writing a thesis on the history of American musical theater. The killer is caught. But he does not plead guilty to the crimes committed. The detective plot doesn’t matter much, the movie has an understated ending: the murders continue, and the policeman keeps visiting bars. The focus is on Burns’ gradual immersion into this subculture and his friendship with mild-mannered neighbor Ted Bailey, leading to a gruesome and ambiguous ending: the audience learns of Bailey’s brutal murder, and then is treated to an eerie final shot in which Burns stares at his reflection in the mirror with a strange look of cold satisfaction. Has someone picked up the murder baton, or has the wrong man been caught? And isn’t it the protagonist himself who is the killer?