Why watch movies about serial killers? I think I'm interested in them for the same reason I read articles about medical maladies--to study the enemy, to scrutinize my fears, as a woman on the brink of the twenty-first century. I'm not one of those fans of serial killers per se, not the kind of woman who might have sat swoonily in court during Ted Bundy's trial and sent him love letters. Serial killers definitely hit the fear button of my psyche.
Serial killer movies have become an increasingly stylized mirror of our cultural fears since Halloween popularized slasher films and Silence of the Lambs redefined our fascination in terms of behavioral science. Actually, though, slasher films are not always about serial killers; very often their homicidal maniacs more closely fit the definition of spree killers. The spree killer's rampage is essentially a single event, at various locations, with no cooling-off period between kills. The duration can be a few hours or days or even longer. Serial murder, on the other hand, is defined as "three or more separate events in three or more separate locations with an emotional cooling-off period between homicides. The serial murder is hypothesized to be premeditated, involving offense-related fantasy and detailed planning." (*) True serial killers are said to account for a relatively small number of homicides, but some feel that statistics don't truly represent the potential number of their prey among unsolved murders each year. Infamous serial killers include Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, Son of Sam, Ed Gein, the Green River Killer, the Night Stalker, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffery Dahmer, et al.
In terms of genre, the line between
a slasher flick and a 'true' serial killer flick can be hard to pin down,
but here's a short list of the most typical differences that strike
me, off the top of my head:
| Slasher | Serial Killer |
| Victims tend to be teens, of both genders, with occasional 'collateral' damage | Victims tend to
be all women (or all men), and sometimes cops
|
| Killings take place within a single night or a few days | Killings are spaced out over a few weeks, longer |
| No one in authority knows about the killings | Cops, FBI, etc, are immediately drawn into the investigation |
| Victims die for subtextually 'moral' reasons | Victims die for no subtextual reason (except the killer's) |
| Killer strikes spontaneously (but sometimes creatively) at a broad spectrum of handy victims | Killer strikes premeditatedly, and chooses victims according to type and pattern |
| Killer is thwarted by his (or her) final 'victim' | Killer is thwarted by an authority figure |
| Killer often has an explicit motive of revenge and backstory | Killer has complex, unspecified psychological drive to murder |
| Killer is usually faceless | Killer is often personalized |
| There's usually
no investigation
|
Investigation is often a significant part of the plot |
I'm hardly a rabid enthusiast for serial killers themselves, certainly not compared to some scary people out there. And I'm not interested in movies about serial killers for the sickening violence, even though it can have a visceral thrill. The movies truest to the genre contain certain defining elements for my fascination (other than the above), including:
There are plenty of books on serial killers, of course; and on related subjects such as criminology and forensic pathology. But if you want to ease lazily into the subject, then watching movies is just the ticket. Popcorn entertainment for a rainy night. Just the thing when you're in your fuzzy socks on the couch and can't bear to stir.
Make sure your door is locked first, though, and that you're alone in the house....
2000 * 1999 * 1998 * 1997 * 1996 * 1995 * 1994 * 1993 * 1992 * 1991 * earlier
Cabin by the Lake (2000) -- Judd Nelson and some victims
This is one of those USA Network home movies, so just stay tuned to that channel and don't bother to get this from the video store. This is not the kind of movie where it'd be a real shame if I spoiled the plot for you. You can figure out the whole thing if you watch the commercial trailers. Writer lives in a cabin by the lake. He's writing a screenplay about a guy who lives in a cabin by a lake and who drowns girls. To research his screenplay he kidnaps and drowns a bunch of girls. When they're dead, he dresses them up in pretty clothes and chains them to the bottom of the lake, where they float in place in a ludicrously well-preserved way. One kick-ass victim eventually takes him down, and he dies. At least until the sequel, Return to Cabin by the Lake.
The only reason you'd want to watch this is you're bored, drunk, and it's 1:00am and you're channel surfing. And even then, you could do something else, you know. This is Judd Nelson, after all. How low can you sink?
What you'll get for your money: Judd Nelson, who is not worth four bucks. Feeble attempts--worse in the sequel--at a form of self-referential humor that only Scream really pulled off well. Egregiously healthy corpses. "Madcap" murder. The chick who plays the theater employee cum spunky victim was pretty good, though.
Can you believe I wrote "cum spunky"?
American Psycho (2000) -- Christian Bale
Seeing as I'm one of the few people in the world who's read the book by Bret Easton Ellis (whose name anagrams to no to breast nellies), I should be able to speak with a semblance of authority about the differences between the novel and the movie adaptation. But it's been seven years and the nuances are lost to me. I do recall that the novel is equal parts a catalogue of horrific violence and yuppie consumerism.What surprised me about the movie was how much they kept of that dynamic. The movie is highly successful as a period piece, with Reagan-era excess, hairstyles, and soundtrack.
I'm not sure what sort of message Ellis meant to send with his novel, but the movie was effective in capturing an eeriely familiar--and barely maintained--balance of conformity and rage. Basically, you have this guy, a Harvard alum who works on Wall Street, wears power suits, and fits in by design, who is secretly a serial killer, striking out against everything he hates--his rivals, the poor, women in general. The movie doesn't deliver the extremes of the book; there's no way it could. Not even an NC-17 movie, let alone an R, would get away with our antihero wearing a woman's severed head on his woody. But there are some striking images, and his methodicalness is interesting. In fact, it's the discrepancy between Patrick Bateman's stylized life--Architectural Digest meets GQ--and his gory frenzies of violence that makes this worth watching.
Overall, this is a good entry in the genre, but it's not one that's likely to stir you deeply. It has moments of dark humor; you might also find that humor distancing. Christian Bale is hardcore freaky as Bateman. The character he plays is isolated and unlikeable, and yet his life (or lifestyle) is compelling in the way that flipping through a copy of Vanity Fair is sometimes compelling. Bateman's empty, glittering socio-business milieu drew me nightmarishly in, and I kept thinking: here is the world to which so many of my contemporaries aspired. I cherish my slackerhood even more after watching this. And yet...oh, to be rich and empty of soul, to be drugged and beautiful, to lie in bed eating Godiva chocolates in an apartment overlooking the park. Don't we all share that secret dream.... Oh, stop mocking me.
So, how gory is this? Well, you should be able to watch pretty much everything without flinching; most violence takes place off-screen. But there are some images that could stay with you.
The film was directed by Mary Harron, who has directed episodes of Oz and Homicide: Life on the Streets. She also directed I Shot Andy Warhol. The support cast was not used notably, but includes some interesting names, including Samantha Mathis, Chloë Sevigny, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe, and the always perfect Reese Witherspoon.
What you'll get for your money: Stylish mayhem, everything you suspected about yuppies but were afraid to ask, amusingly vapid exegeses of 80s pop music. The movie seems meant to be a psychological profile and, probably, some sort of commentary on our society. There's no FBI involvement; just a passing detective.
Watch for: Business cards as a motive for murder.
The Watcher (2000) -- Keanu Reeves, James Spader, Marisa Tomei
This has everything I've always wanted for Christmas, or at least everything I've always wanted from a serial killer movie. My perspective may be a bit skewed because I recently saw this on the big screen, and a theater viewing can make a movie stand out over the usual video-rental picks. But, nonetheless: wow. Part of me simply wants to bullet point what I liked about this film; the other part grudgingly decides to attempt articulation.
To start, the casting is a dream: your serial killer should be a guy who's always played nice, innocent not-too-bright dudes (Reeves). Your FBI wash-out should be a guy with a long history of playing scheming psychoboys (Spader). That's what makes it perfect: reversing the expected. Granted, I just took a look at Spader's acting credits and he hasn't played as many psychoboys as I'd thought--but he gives that impression nonetheless, because he's a strange and edgy bastard. Reeves, on the other hand, surfs to this on the casting subtext of Point Break and Speed.
Checking this out on a theater screen lets you see Reeves' and Spader's faces larger than life, and it's worth the price of admission. I don't know if Reeves put on some weight deliberately for this role, or if he was just in a chunky phase, but whatever the case he's perfect here: from a distance, he's still a charmingly handsome guy. But focus up close and personal and his face becomes a skewed map, a landslide, a vacant lot of cracked earth. The wasteland. Spader, on the other hand, is old. Man, he's gotten old. His face too is heavy: his eyes are heavy-lidded, his cheeks hang ripely on his fine bones, his lips are a tired wealth of unspoken pain. The camera lingers on both men's faces at least once, at length, letting them display their characterizations with nothing more than their bare skin. It's effective. I don't think I've ever seen either man looking so raw and unherolike.
The plot of the movie runs parallel to the backstory, which unfolds (or folds into place) with a weirdly orgami-like effect. You don't know, at first, precisely what happened to make Campbell (Spader) become such a wreck, but eventually the picture coheres into horror and you understand why he is what he is, and what his history is with Griffin (Reeves). The relationship between the two of them is, in its twisted way, intimate, another beauty mark of the film. Many other movies (Silence of the Lambs, Copycat) have established the possibility of a relationship between killer and law. Now, the relationship is delineated explicitly; the psychological "yin and yang" of authority and violence becomes the heart of the film. It's a bit trite, if you think about it too closely; but if you allow the relationship in the film its courtship rituals, it becomes a dark romance.
I could say more about the plot, but I won't spoil the grooviness of its effects. The only significant disappointment I had with the film is its ending. It felt anticlimactic, but I think that's just jadenedness talking. It's hard to achieve closure at the movies these days. We've seen too much. Everything is an extreme. Simple death has lost its punch.
Directed by Joe Charbanic, who seems to have done nothing else before this. Perhaps he came out of the music video business. Note: Marisa Tomei is the most inoffensive she's ever been. Her only great role was in My Cousin Vinnie, and most of her other outings have been dreck, but she doesn't hurt this picture.
What you'll get for your money: A damaged hero, a satisfying antihero, compelling plotting, vaguely "slashy" dynamics (definitely a stretch--slash in the abstract--rather sick if you go there), interesting cinematography. Actually, the cinematography and the pacing are arty enough at times, particularly in the beginning, that I suspect this will fail with audiences. I feel this is going to be relatively marginal, not a popular film, despite casting. It'd be nice to be wrong, of course.
Watch for: The order of the opening credits; the close-ups of the stars.
Felicia's Journey (1999) -- Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy
Written and directed by Atom Egoyan, a great name for the protagonist of a science-fiction parable. This is an upscale serial killer flick, with restraint and subtlety and all that. A critical darling with a high IMDb rating and a heart.
I liked this, in a British tea sort of way. It had enough creepiness to engage me, and its methodical pace mimics the approach of organized serial killers, who are obsessive-compulsive and hold an unswerving devotion to script. This is well-crafted, bloodless, and would be a good introduction to serial killer movies for the uninitiated--a gauge of responsiveness to the genre that would not freak the squeamish.
There's a good interview with Atom Egoyan about this movie at NitrateOnline.com, which you shouldn't read until after you've seen the movie itself, of course.
What you'll get for your money: Great performance by Bob Hoskins; British suburbia; exquisitely calculated manipulation (think Dangerous Liaisons and multiply by a factor of ten); perfectly cooked meals. Atom Egoyan also directed The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, Krapp's Last Tape, et al.
Watch for: The Christian missionaries. Always watch for the Christian missionaries....
Eye of the Beholder (1999) -- Ewan McGregor, Ashley Judd, k.d. Lang, Jason Priestley, Geneviève Bujold
Critics didn't really take to this movie, as far as I can tell. And its rating in IMdB is currently 4.2 out of 10 with 1557 votes. I was prepared to dislike it; the trailers didn't grab me, Ashley Judd doesn't grab me, and Ewan McGregor is an oddball who can make good or bad film choices depending on the weather. Having watched it now, I can say: it's arty, weird, vague, and just plain screwy. And I liked it a hell of a lot.
Ashley Judd is our serial killer--one of the rare few women in the genre. Ewan McGregor plays a British 'detective', or secret service agent. It's hard to tell which. The movie is obscure in detail, quite obviously on purpose. It's the kind of movie that takes pains to establish atmosphere rather than backstory. Therefore we get cool spy-versus-spy voice-recognition codes ("Beauty is in the eye of the beholder") and pussy cats in the consulate, but no real explanation of what the hell McGregor's character does for the millenial empire, or how he can simply take off for months at a time on whim.
Basically: McGregor sees Judd commit a murder, incomprehensibly falls for her, and follows her around the country without her knowledge, acting as her guardian angel, while she commits more murders and flees one step ahead of the law--the real, American law, that is, not McGregor, who goes cracked in the head for love and swims out further and deeper into an invisible amorality, a Graham Greene hero giving himself over to the Dark Side.
And, you know, that's pretty much it for the plot. Really. But this film was gorgeous. A strange blend of contemporary and vintange cintematography, lush noir authenticity--and, above all, these people were simply fucking twisted. Twisted. Fucked up. On the edge and falling over. Maybe it helped that I was drinking whiskey when I watched it. Nonetheless I am quite satisfied with the $3.79 I forked over to Hollywood Video, and that's saying something.
Directed by Stephan Elliott, whose other notable film was The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
What you'll get for your money: I dunno what the hell this was, but it was pretty fucking cool to see Obi-Wan using a hitman's rifle and talking to his imaginary child.
Watch for: Count the number of Ashley Judd's wig changes, the number of snow globes, and the number of times I use 'fuck' in this review.
The Bone Collector (1999) -- Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie, Queen Latifah
The director on this was Phillip Noyce, who's had a few hits (Dead Calm, Patriot Games) and a few misses (The Saint, everything else). The film is based on the novel by Jeffery Deaver, which I've been told is pretty good.
Sadly, the movie pretty much sucks. Denzel is a ex-cop who's had a bad accident and is now a quadriplegic; the only working parts of his body are head, shoulders, and one finger. The techno gear he's got at his fingertip is pretty damn cool, but obviously expensive, and it's never made very clear who's funding his bed rest. Short plot: Angelina Jolie finds a corpse, stops a train to avoid tainting evidence, wows Denzel with her savvy, and is adopted as his pet crime scene analyst, on call to walk "the grid" at a series of crime scenes, her pithy commentary piped in to Denzel via radio headset.
The premise is interesting, and I'll accept that the novel could be pretty cool. However, there are so many dumb things about the movie itself it's hard to know where to start. Why is an amateur being tapped to walk crime scenes--aren't there any other analysts in the city? How does the department justify setting up an entire task force in Denzel's bedroom? Why the hell are they doing microscopy and other labwork there? Who are these useless people perpetually sitting around in the background listening to Denzel natter into his microphone during every dramatic moment? Is it really ideal to send a lone cop into dark, rat-infested undeground tunnels to look for evidence when the killer could still be lurking? Isn't it gosh darn handy that the evidence is always sitting there in a neat little pile? And why the hell would you ask a nervous, novice cop to cut off a corpse's hands?
Frankly, it doesn't help that I find Dezel Washington to be a smug and boring actor. Angelina Jolie added little to the picture; she was obviously directed to be 'tough', and comes across as simply an off-key, unlikeable bitch. The supporting cast was tapped to be an obsequious audience to Denzel's every twitch, and the killer is painfully obvious almost from the moment he walks on screen--and if he weren't, Denzel helpfully telegraphs his identity halfway through the movie.
The serial killings themselves are peripheral to Denzel's diva turn. They're interesting in an abstract way, but are never allowed to upstage the Man in the Golden Bed. Plus, we find out at the end that it's all an elaborate plot to thwart Denzel in some unspecified way that I couldn't really follow.
The only good thing in this movie was Queen Latifah, who is yummier every time I see her.
The bad things about this movie are legion, including the ending which completely reverses Denzel's dark, suicidal decline. Instead of death, Angelina Jolie falls totally in love with him. They end up living together happily ever after, and the last we see of them is at Christmas, Denzel's physical degneration miraculously stayed, Angelina snazzily and femininely dressed, attending at his side, and all their friends and family gathered around, audience to their perfect mutual happiness.
Bleah.
What you'll get for your money: Not much.
Watch for: That astonishing moment when Denzel turns to the audience and says: "I am now telegraphing to you who the killer is. Please pay attention."
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) -- Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) claims the full title of this movie is The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley. I just thought I'd share that.
This homoerotic flick with Matt and Jude is based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. The book, by the way, is an oldie but a goodie, and kicked off an entire series of Ripley novels--the only series I can think of based on the successful life of a serial killer. Before you get too excited, it's worth noting that the series is mildly homoerotic (with 1950s obliquity) only in the first book. After that, the protagonist Tom Ripley becomes far more settled and conventional. Which is the whole point, of course: the serial killer wants to blend in. Tom Ripley is the fictional father of Ted Bundy and Patrick Bateman, a conformist with a homicidal underbelly.
Of course, you should still read the series; it's compelling--and simultaneously kind of boring. But boring in a manner that seems deliberate, meant to reduce Ripley's ruthless actions to the banal and commonplace. I can't help but think that the series was probably far more shocking for its time, which would have made this trick of contrast more effective for the readers.
The movie adheres to the plot of the book pretty closely, but somehow seems to miss the mark. I'm not sure why--maybe it's Damon. I have no idea how I visualized Ripley but Damon's toothy grin and preppie golden looks don't seem quite right for the character. But let's forget the book and focus on the movie: the settings are sumptuous, the people are rich and pretty, the social situation is awkward and the tension is palpable. The plot: Tom Ripley meets up with Mr. Greenleaf and pretends to know his son Dickie. Tom's a poseur, a social climber, a habitual liar. He goes to Europe on Greenleaf senior's dime, with the assignment of persuading his son to return to America. Once there, he sets out deliberately to entrench himself in Dickie's life and extravagant lifestyle, falling enamored of its luxuries and of Dickie--or of what he represents. Things are twisted awry and murders happen, because Tom has no moral compass whatsoever.
The chief appeal of the movie is watching Tom scheme. He half haphazardly, half methodically, plans and executes his murders, but he doesn't seem like a real serial killer, perhaps because of the elegant European settings that bathe all his actions in an artful haze that's at turns golden and melancholy. As a minor note, it's also endlessly amusing to hear Gwyneth Paltrow addressed as "Marge", a name that sits discordantly with her bland, well-bred beauty.
Directed by Anthony Minghella, who also directed The English Patient (of course I haven't seen it), and Truly, Madly, Deeply.
What you'll get for your money: Eye candy galore--pretty people, great clothes, exotic locales. Also, fleeting homoeroticism, the wonderfully snide Philip Seymour Hoffman in a supporting role, intricate repercussions, psychological gaming between characters. There's a hunt, of sorts, by the authorities. The violence is not squickening.
Watch for: All the fabulous details of a bygone era, when rich kids could rent villas by the sea, sit in cafes, go to the opera, and spend an entire year abroad in luxury for no more than we'd pay now for a small domestic automobile. If nothing else, this movie serves to fetishize a whole slew of glamorous and expensive accessories of the lifestyle to which we should all be rightly born.
The Minus Man (1999) -- Owen Wilson, Janeane Garofalo, Brian Cox, Mercedes Ruehl, Dwight Yoakam, Dennis Haysbert, Sheryl Crow
This is one of my prize finds of the year, a film that seems to have totally escaped popular notice. I don't even recall this being in the theater and wouldn't be surprised to learn that it played for three days and then vanished.
Flip through a movie guide and you could a hundred films with a similar plot, half of which have played on the USA network: drifter slides into town, takes a room, befriends troubled couple, meets girl, kills some people. Any distinction the film has is largely due to the performance of Owen Wilson, who enacts a thoughtful, low-key portrayal of Vann Siegert, a drifting maniac who fancies himself a mercy killer. Watch this and tell me how Wilson's face can host so many expressions while showing so little affect. The man is as subtle as melting butter. Actually, it's more like watching a patch of shadow from a tree that keeps moving, showing light then dark--with one small rearrangement of his jigsaw face, Wilson can shift from sweetness to sinistry. One moment he's a cutie, the next he's a creepy zombie.
About this movie, Katherine Monk of Vancouver Today wrote:
Written and directed by Hampton Fancher, who has writing and producing credits for Blade Runner. Owen Wilson's other movies include Shanghai Noon, The Haunting, Permanent Midnight, Anaconda, and Bottle Rocket. Brian Cox you may recognize from episodes of Sharpe and from Rob Roy.
What you'll get for your money: A disturbingly appealing killer, Janeane Garofalo, low-key humor, Wilson's honeyed drawl. This is not an FBI hunt movie. This is more like American Psycho, where we stick with the killer's point of view for the duration of the tale. But this has a low horror quotient as compared to AP, so don't be afraid. It feels, somehow, Canadian. Imagine Benton Fraser as a serial killer, polite and mild, and you'll have a very good expectation going into this.
Listen for: The recurring anecdote of the spider.
Immortality (1998) -- Jude Law and a bunch of people you've never heard of
Immortality is the USA video rental title--this is really The Wisdom of Crocodiles. Not sure why they changed the name--the original is far more compelling. I picked this up off the rental shelf on whim. I was looking for glossy kill flicks, and zeroed in on this. But Jude Law doesn't even resemble himself on the cover, so it's easy to overlook this sleeper... snoozer... coma patient.
It really wasn't bad. A nice suprise, considering the misgivings the rental box instilled. It's an elegantly filmed, stylish vehicle, with a plot like cheap wine poured into an arty bottle, which renders it more drinkable. Law plays Steven Grlscz, a well-heeled guy with no vowels who immediately gives off a whiff of decadent wrongness. I've seen this referred to as a vampire movie, and I guess that's kinda sorta true, so you could consider Grlscz a vampire qua serial killer, a subgenre all his own.
What you'll get for your money: Lovely clothes, lovely Law, architectural porn, organized murder methodology, a nice play on cop-and-killer cat and mouse, and inoffensive supporting actors.
This was directed by Po Chih Leong, also credited with Cabin by the Lake. And its sequel. Sad to see the stylish brought so low....
Watch for: The fight with the mugger.
Clay Pigeons (1998) -- Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn, Janeane Garofalo
Since I'm seguing into another movie that co-stars Janeane Garofalo, I'll mention its Salon review for a dash of continuity. Reviewer Andrew O'Hehir is somewhat kinder about this flick, and scores hits ("a goofballish, neo-noir sensibility") and misses ("a summer movie that leaked into fall") in describing the film. He does rate best quote of the day in capturing the characterization of Vince Vaughn's 'Lester Long', though: "a combination of Elvis Presley, Hannibal Lecter, a gay rodeo cowboy, and that guy who really, really wanted to be your friend in seventh grade."
This is a dark, dark comedy--or a drama with dessicated humor. But, no, it's pretty much a comedy, as much as any film can be in which a woman is stabbed 40 times. I liked this a lot--maybe because I want to eat Joaquin Phoenix up with a spoon.Granted, he does mumble a bit; there's at least one line that is utterly incomprehensible no matter how many times you play it. But who cares what he's saying, anyway, when he's so fuckab--um, watchable. Vince Vaughn is remarkable, carrying himself with so much ease you don't even notice he's acting, even when he's chewing up the walls. Garofalo is just a goddess. I want her to come sit on my couch and smoke nervously and pick her sweater to threads and spit flecks of tobacco on my carpet. I want to paint her toenails and hear her bitch about life. And then I want her to go home, because after two hours we'd probably be ready to punch each other.
The "sensibility" of the movie (I'm going to steal that word) is rather like Blood Simple meets Psycho meets Heathers--and they all stop to have a coffee together in Fargo. If you can wrap your head anywhere around that conglomerate, you'll probably enjoy the ride. Plotwise, a lot happens, and I won't spoil the details. Take a chance, rent it, make some popcorn.
"Who is Joaquin Phoenix?" you ask pensively. "That name sounds familiar." He played Commodus in Gladiator. Just think: face like an overripe peach going soft, dark and bruised. The film is directed by David Dobkin, which is not a meaningful thing to know, apparently, since his only other credit is for something called Ice Cream Man.
What you'll get for your money: Our serial killer is a charming drifter in a cowboy hat; our protagonist is a chewy bit of eye-candy with a run of terrible luck; and our FBI agent is Goddess Garofalo doing her thing. Also: small town milieu with gorgeous scenery, solid supporting cast, black-coffee humor, and a soundtrack that will make you run out and buy the CD immediately.
Watch for: The bad continuity gaffe with the pillow and the bimbo. And criminally handsome supporting actor Phil Morris, who played Grant Collier in the remake of the "Mission: Impossible" series. Listen for: Vaugh's freaky laugh.
Urban Legend (1998) -- Jared Leto, Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart
Someone on the IMDb wrote, "Good premise wasted in tepid horror film," which sums this up well. Serial killings on a college campus are based on urban legends. This follows the logic of a slasher flick, though, because no one in authority takes the deaths seriously, the murders are haphazard, and the motive is revenge. This is trying hard to be another Scream but it never achieves that leve of wit, style, or cultural self-awareness; it does, however, do a good job of capturing the banality of youth. The tasteless jokes and fraternity drinking are trite, but have a small ring of authenticity that's usually lacking in teen-themed films.
Leto is swinging toward the preppie, snotty end of the pendulum here. Alicia Witt--who is this dull person? Rebecca Gayheart (who was in Scream 2) was not unwatchable.
What you'll get for your money: Teens, high body count, a few creatively staged murders, a few not-so-creatively staged murders, incomprehensible plot holes (people always seem to be getting into cars and taking a drive for no good reason; phones seem to have been disinvented), nice background scenery.
Watch for: The microwave scene, followed by...ugh.
Fallen (1998) -- Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland
From IMdB:
The movie itself was all right, too. Not a serial killer flick in the usual sense, to my mind, but close enough if you're okay with margarine, not butter. I love John Goodman--he always rocks, and I'll watch just about anything he's in, even if Denzel's crowding the screen. This never took flight into greatness, but it'll pin you to the couch--at least if you have a heavy cat in your lap and a drink in your hand.
What you'll get for your money: Supernatural criminality, yadda yadda.
Watch for: The ending.
Kiss the Girls (1997) -- Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Cary Elwes, Brian Cox
This strikes me as a revisitation of Silence of the Lambs, what we'd see if Clarice Starling had been victim rather than agent. Ashley Judd, as Kate McTiernan, is tough but vulnerable: she's an intern and she kickboxes, but she also lives alone and walks around with a drifty look on her petite face. She's sketched with similarities to Clarice, but Judd doesn't have Foster's keenly anxious depths to draw on. Her character comes across more like Miss McTiernan, your fifth-grade teacher, going through a rough patch this week.
What we've got here is a serial killer self-styled as "Casanova" who actually collects his victims to serve his whims in a damp personal harem; a forensic psychologist (Freeman) whose niece has been abducted; and a victim (Judd) who successfully escapes the killer's clutches and then helps with the investigation. Sprinkle in some local cops and a handful of pretty girls and you've got a macabre sort of carnival. There are some interesting twists and touches here; there's also a lot that's difficult to explain. Why does Casanova wear a mask, for instance, when he has no intention of letting any of his harem leave--or, presumably, live? It seems a cheaply convenient ploy to hide his identity from his escaped victim, and thus from us, until the end of the movie. The difference in his voice is never explained, nor is why he chose to give himself away with a very obvious piece of evidence when he'd taken so much trouble to set up a fall guy. Maybe he thought it wouldn't be noticed; maybe he was just playing a clever game. Either way, it allows for one of those timely coincidences which saves the day. Ho hum. I also question why they're unable to track Kate's escape route backwards, calculating things like the speed of the river current and looking for marks of her passage. Maybe it's explained better in the novel on which this is based (by James Patterson), but having read some of Patterson's books, I doubt it.
Morgan Freeman, a man with wise, frank eyes, usually elevates every movie he's in; here, however, he has very little material to work with. The supporting cast is negligible.
Directed by Gary Fleder, who's directed an episode of Homicide and a few other things. Nothing notable.
What you'll get for your money: Staples of the trade (a montage of wall art, a few bodies, a hypo, etc), interesting plot twists, Juddly gumption.
Watch for: Jeremy Piven in a sadly tiny role.
Switchback (1997) -- Dennis Quaid, Jared Leto, Danny Glover
There's always something disconcerting in seeing Dennis Quaid play grim. When he does what comes natural, Quaid will grin like a firecracker split his face and rewire every character into a good ol' boy with ants in his pants; when he turns down that honkey-tonk jazz that must be constantly buzzing in his head, he ends up playing against type. In Flesh and Bone he pulls off this reversal and makes grim look good: wretched and gut wrenching. In Switchback he makes grim look bad, as if he died during the night and his corpse was reanimated as a constipated bulldog.
Danny Glover is Bob Goodall, our serial killer; Quaid is Frank LaCrosse, the FBI agent; and Leto is Lane Dixon, an innocent man along for the ride. Goodall, his identity unconfirmed, had been under investigation by an FBI task force, kidnapped LaCrosse's son (and, oh yeah, killed his babysitter), and then went to ground. LaCrosse himself has been going AWOL to track down both killer and son--and his superiors aren't too happy with him. There are a few interesting twists to this tale, but mostly it's a rip-off. The story hangs together like a shoddily built shack on which chance after unlikely chance is piling up. We get details that might lead to something substantial, plotwise: a girl who narrowly misses being killed; the fact that Lane Dixon is a doctor; a car crash on a snowy bank; the realization that Dixon has a gun. But nothing ever comes of these plot points. They're either frills or clumsy misdirection; if Jeb Stuart, the writer-director, had actually attempted to create suspense about the killer's identity, these nuances might actually make sense. But it's foul ball after ball lobbed into nothingness, until nearly the end when we suddenly get a wad of backstory pitched in our face.
We're also supposed to believe that Goodall is able to coordinate a series of unpredictable events, beginning months in advance, in order to lure LaCrosse up into the mountains of Texas in February during a snow storm to a specific train that's in motion, in order to...um, tell him where his son is? Kill him? Die? There's no way to be sure what his intentions were. Goodall does die, but fortunately had taken a Kodak moment to reveal the kid's location to ride-along pal Dixon. Why? Who knows. Dixon, throat cut, unable to speak, probably dying, manages to pull a permanent marker from a cop's pocket and write out the address on the floor of a train car. Gee whiz. That's lucky.
There's no profiling in this, which is a shame, because I'd love an explanation for Glover's character, Bob Goodall. Or, simply, to know why they cast Glover. Maybe it was just to have him, like Quaid, play against affable type, but it's worth noting that interracial homicide is an extremely rare trait for serial killers, and Lane Dixon fits the profile far more closely than Goodall (age, race, background). They seemed to be playing with this idea in the script, but unconvincingly. From the context of the film, you could make a case that Goodall didn't self-identify strongly as a black man; he was just another small-town boy from the hills of Texas. Still, it's rather odd, and Glover doesn't bring much to the role. He's just not scary. Ever. Even as he's slicing people up, it's like watching your dad's old fishing buddy show you how to gut trout. He barely seems aware of what he's doing.
As mentioned, this was written and directed by Jeb Stuart, who had writing credits on The Fugitive, among other things. The similarities are noticeable, but Switchback fails to measure up.
What you'll get for your money: A whole lotta good ol' boys; a recurring railroad theme; a long road trip with Bob; Dennis Quaid in need of laxatives, three shots, and a blow job; snow. Nothing really exceptional here; adds little to the genre.
Watch for: Jared Leto. He usually looks like a snotty yuppie, or the frat boy who once dumped beer on your head, but he's darn cute here for a change. Sadly, he has the screen presence of a damp towel. Ted Levine is more watchable in a minor role as Deputy Nate Booker. The casting irony here is that he played Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in Silence of the Lambs. He cleans up well.
Killers (1996) -- A bunch of unknowns, including some guy named 'Ivan Vertigo.' Note: This is listed in IMDb with the title Killers but I rented this in Hollywood Video as Real Killers.
This is a movie only for the true fanatics of the genre. It has relatively poor production values, godawful acting (correction: fucking godawful acting), speechifying guaranteed to numb the brain, and heaping handfuls of grotesquerie. However, it also has an amusing premise and some priceless little moments of...well, grotesquerie. This is kind of reaching for the ironic suburban angst of American Beauty, but with serial killers. Actually, the box compared it favorably to Natural Born Killers, but I'm not sure the similarities will leap out at you. At the end of the movie, my chief desire was to see this remade with a kick-ass cast, extensive rewrites, and better cinematography. Fantasy cast:
What you'll get for your money: No spoilers, man. The surprises may be all that justify your rental fees. And don't read the box, either. But it's a grade-Z flick, so set your expectations accordingly.
Watch for: Bob. Good old Bob. A real sweetheart, and a damn fine lover, too.
Curdled (1996) -- William Baldwin, Angela Jones, Barry Corbin, Daisy Fuentes
Weird little black comedy about a woman obsessed with serial killers, in particular the "Blue Blood Killer," a handsome Bundy knockoff played by Baldwin who saws off rich women's heads.
I have to admit I watched this half asleep; it came on at 1:00am and I was already zoning off, but couldn't pass up an opportunity to catch something on my hit list for free. Basically, gist is: a pretty Columbian immigrant named Gabriela has an unhealthy obsession with serial killers and takes a job with a cleaning service that specializes in wiping up after bloody murders. William Baldwin is the suave killer. Gabriela gets the opportunity to work at one of his crime scenes, and inadvertantly meets the object of her affection.
The chief amusement is wallowing in a gory obsession by proxy. You can safely distance yourself from Gabriela, while still recognizing the common traits of fannish behavior we all hold. She's a true student of the homicidal mind, and the way in which she attempts to reconstruct events is the exact practice that a profiler would use. But with dancing.
What you'll get for your money: Dripping black humor; great soundtrack; gingerbread cookies; fringe lunacy; a well-staged murder scene; lilting Floridian accents. A film-school flick, executive produced by Quentin Tarantino.
Watch for: The free plug for From Dusk to Dawn. The name of the cleaning service.
Freeway (1996) -- Kiefer Sutherland, Reese Witherspoon, Brooke Shields, Amanda Plummer, Michael T. Weiss, Dan Hedaya
This is a delicious sleeper film that I didn't expect much of. I find Kiefer Sutherland generally uninteresting and Reese Witherspoon was an unknown to me at the time I first watched this. The movie is packaged to look trite and salacious--bimbo hitching on the highway, a menacing man, etc, a tactic which works both for it and against it. Against it, because you probably won't go out of your way to rent it. For it, because in reality this is a feral, bitch-slapping movie disguised as dreck, and all of your expectations will be shot to hell. Or they would be if I weren't more or less spoiling it for you by raising those expectations a notch, but that can't be helped.
Kiefer Sutherland is our nominal serial killer and he does a damn good job considering that he's an ugly son of a bitch. But the real draw here is Reese Witherspoon: this doll is like Ninja!Barbie on a rampage. If I saw this baby-faced terror lying unconscious on the ground, I'd be afraid to touch her with a stick--I'd run away. Of course, I'm talking about her character, Vanessa Lutz, but Reese is way down deep in this girl's skin. She's white trash with wise eyes and a bemused pout, and if you fuck with her, she'll eat you alive. There's a see-saw experience in watching her--charm and horror, charm and horror. She's awe inspiring.
I'm not going to spoil the story itself--it's not Shakespeare, but it's brutally good fun, a roller coaster ride mixed with alcohol. Sometimes it can be hard to draw the line between black comedy and acidic drama, but I'd peg this for the latter; this movie is sharply ironic (razor sharp) rather than jokey. The closest film in tone to Freeway that I can think of is Citizen Ruth, possibly the only example of successfully mixing humor with the subjects of drug addiction and abortion. The creators of Freeway weren't afraid to go to similar tongue-in-cheek extremes (witness the opening credits) or to let their actors do so. And if you liked Thelma and Louise for its sly fetishizing of feminist empowerment, you'll probably enjoy this trip as well, though they're radically different in character. IMdB describes the movie as "Little Red Riding Hood for the 1990's", and the credits give the conceit away right off the bat, making it easy to spot the reconstructed plot architecture of the fairy tale--and its ironies.
Written and directed by Matthew Bright, who's otherwise done a bunch of crap, including After Diff'rent Strokes: When the Laughter Stopped. (Though, to be fair, maybe this is a masterpiece. You let me know, okay?)
What you'll get for your money: One tough baby doll, one nasty serial killer, an instruction manual in street smarts and survival skills, an inculcated desire never to adopt wayward teens. This is a different take on the genre; no extravagant FBI manhunts; no psychological profiling and glamorization of the murderer.
Watch for: Juvie-hall cat-fight for the nineties! How to make a weapon out of your toothbrush! How to hide your shiv in your coochie! Ouch! Not to mention Michael T. Weiss (The Pretender) as a low-rent crackhead swathed in tattoos.
Scream (1996) -- Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Liev Schreiber, Drew Barrymore
This is nominally a slasher flick, and slashers usually constitute a genre shift--the killers tend to be spree murderers and the story focus remains tightly on the victims. And yet this is such a culturally relevant reinvention of the slasher film in terms of serial killer psychology and media sophistication that it deserves a mention. Plus, it's just a damn good movie. If you somehow missed the critical hubbub or wrote the movie off based on its buzz, give up and go rent it now.You'll have more than one couch slouch to look forward to because--rarity of rarities--the sequels are good too. (Though, like most series, the quality declines a bit with each installment, there's an overarching structure to the trilogy and you won't be thwarted of closure.)
The reviewer for SplicedOnline writes:
Plot happens.
Directed by Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street), written by Kevin Williamson (The Faculty, I Know What You Did Last Summer).
What you'll get for your money: Humor, brutal killings, visceral slasher tension, great ensemble cast, and a hip, edgy revision of type. No FBI profiling, but some media involvement. There is cultural and psychological context for the murders; the face of death is revealed.
Watch for: That guy in your closet...right there! Behind you! Watch out!
Killer: Journal of a Murder (1996) -- James Woods, Robert Sean Leonard
This is a fine Academy-Award level film with a crappy title that makes it sound like the CBS movie of the week. If you pick this up off the shelf in the video store, you're unlikely to think Shawshank Redemption, but the title is misleading because it's just as good if not better. Certainly this is a far less sentimental vision of prison. Even so, it still espouses certain ideals--they just seem sort of ironic and misplaced, considering what we're presented with.
James Woods stars as Carl Panzram, who was a real human being who killed a lot of people. In Carl's words:
A good chunk of the story, when we learn about Carl's past, is a creative use of narrative and montage--old news reel clippings, black and white for the flashbacks, etc. It's all interesting, particularly the section about Carl's time with Warden Charles Casey, a reformist ahead of his time who briefly gives Carl a chance. What we barely get a glimpse of is Carl-the-sodomite. The details of his killings and his sexual offenses aren't truly made explicit; we only get passing references to the rape that he himself experienced and how he learned to reverse the practice on others. Overall, the movie focuses on the relationship between Carl and Henry, bad man and good man. Henry is our protagonist here. It's almost his coming of age story, even though he's a twentysomething with wife and child.
Directed by Tim Metcalfe, who also wrote and directed Kalifornia. With the fine character actor Harold Gould, and Ellen Greene as a librarian (she's the chick with the adorable voice who played the 'real' Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors).
What you'll get for your money: Prison details, human wretchedness, human goodness, Robert Sean Leonard looking cute in little glasses, and a kick-ass performance by James Woods.
Watch for: Lili Taylor in an uncredited role.
Seven (1995) -- Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey
The only movie I have vowed I will never watch again, so I have to review this based on memory. It's not a pleasant one. This is thoroughly noir in tone: a visually rich, well-crafted movie with solid performances that evokes a sense of utter hopelessness and despair for the human race. There's a wealth of morbid detail, much of which is visualized--a grotesquely obese corpse found in a kitchen crawling with vermin, a woman killed with a razor-studded dildo, a man forced to cut away a pound of his own flesh, etc.
Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman play detectives in search of a serial killer who is following a Biblical moral logic by matching punishments to the seven mortal sins--gluttony, sloth, pride, lust, and so on. So an obese man is killed by forcing him to eat himself to death, and...so on.
Again, it's not a badly made film; it's also not the bloodiest out there. But its viciousness is extreme, and watching this again would be like voluntarily agreeing to stick my hand in a decomposing corpse. There's no incentive.
Directed by David Fincher, who came out of music videos and is the guy behind Alien 3, The Game, and Fight Club. Written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who also wrote Sleepy Hollow. He has a thing about severed heads, I think. And he's from Altoona, PA. Not sure what the connection is there....
What you'll get for your money: Morbid horrors.
Watch for: Try not to watch.
The Young Poisoner's Handbook
(1995)
To be reviewed.
Copycat (1995) -- Holly Hunter, Sigourney Weaver, Dermot Mulroney, Harry Connick Jr., William McNamara, Will Patton
This is an intelligent, underrated movie that presents all the best elements of a serial killer flick. And the unlikely thing is, it's a chick flick. You almost have to be a fangirl to appreciate the details of this film, because Sigourney Weaver as Dr Helen Hudson is the poster child for all us wannabe recluses everywhere, an elegant basket case who lives in her high-tech apartment, agoraphobically unable to leave its comforts. She has three computers, an endless stock of brandy, cute eyeglasses, a great haircut, stylish clothes, and a live-in gay man to nanny her. She wakes up from restless sleep, pops a few pills with her hooch, hits the chat rooms, and then wanders around her empty apartment looking like a goddess with perfect bone structure. Oh, and she's also a successful author. She's exactly how I envision myself, but whereas I sit around in a tiny apartment in ratty sweatpants, she swans around in glamorous sweaters and lives overlooking the bay. All she's missing is a cat.
Weaver makes this a class act, as she does so much else. Holly Hunter is endearing, as always, and the supporting cast kicks ass. Harry Connick Jr. is just fucking creepy, and anyone who believes the man is a dreamboat will change their mind after watching. But what about plot? Plot, plot, plot. The great thing about this movie is that it avoids reliance on outrageous twists while accomplishing several surprises, and it allows characterization to further the development of the story. When they make Hudson agoraphobic, for instance, it's not like a cheap cocktail dress she shucks off at the first opportunity; she wears it from beginning to end regardless of its repercussions, some of which are horrifying. There are a few plot holes, but they tend to blend into the weave.
What's striking about this film is that it's carried by the women from start to finish; it's oriented to women's fears and shows women casually exhibiting their neuroses and antipathy and courage and intelligence, and if that sounds like a Lifetime movie of the week, then I'm describing it all wrong. Because gender is not particularly noticeable here; yes, the women are the killer's targets, but their responses hold none of the markers of stereotypical film femininity. Obviously on some level they respond to the world as women; but in practice, they simply act like intelligent people. Proving, thank god, that the two things can be equal, even in the movies.
I wouldn't call this slashy, but when I rewatched it I did find myself thinking by the end of the film that the two women would make a very cute couple, something I'd never noticed before.
Ann Biderman is one of the writers credited on this film; she's also worked on Primal Fear and Smilla's Sense of Snow. The director is Jon Amiel, who has a very odd track record for films, including Sommersby, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Entrapment, and the BBC production of The Singing Detective.
What you'll get for your money: Classy cast, high anxiety, smart writing, stylish production values, eye candy (male, female, architectural), and correct information about serial killers.
Watch for: Dumb moments in an otherwise good film. Hunter pulling a hair off of her partner's jacket and tossing it in the direction of a corpse at a crime scene. (Um, yeah.) Weaver sending e-mail to the killer. (Huh?)
Virtuosity (1995) -- Denzel
Washington, Russell Crowe, Kelly Lynch
1995 was a busy year for movies
about serial killers. And what is it with Denzel Washington? This guy turns
up everywhere, damn it. Plot: a technological institute develops a law
enforcement training program that compiles psychological elements of serial
killers into a virtual Super Killer. Russell is the killer, SID (a Sadistic,
Intelligent, and Dangerous entity); Denzel is the lawman, except he's actually
an ex-lawman, now a prisoner being used for this experimental program.
(Because virtual reality can kill, as we all know from watching The
Matrix.)
To finish summarizing:
The only reason to watch this is for Russell "Gladiator" Crowe, and the joy of seeing him play a twisted fuck. Otherwise, as sci-fi thrillers go, this is rather lame. The focus tends to stay on Denzel when it's not getting veering into technobabble and explosions and a lot of other dull things I can't recall too clearly.
Directed by Brett Leonard, also responsible for The Lawnmower Man and Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box. (Huh?)
What you'll get for your money: Russell Crowe.
Watch for: Russell Crowe.
Serial Mom (1994) -- Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard, and the usual suspects (Mink Stole, Traci Lords, et al)
A John Waters movie has a distinctive flavor, like salmon ice cream prepared by the Iron Chef. In Serial Mom we get a kicky homage to serial killers, inner rage, and the American justice system. What plot there is scampers gleefully along like a small dog after Kathleen Turner's well-shod heels as she rampages through suburbia, abusing and killing the deserving: people who steal parking spots, housewives who don't recycle, rude teachers, etc. It's very inspiring, and Turner, as Beverly Sutphin, stands as an example of personal expression and think-on-your-feet creativity that we don't get to see every day.
It's not much more than a one-trick pony, and Turner never breaks stride or character. She tsk-tsks at the crassness of chewing gum then mows down her son's teacher with a car; refers distastefully to mild pornography then begs to watch horror gore; schools her daughter in politeness then skewers a guy with a fire poker. She has certain standards--clean home, family dinner at the table, recycling as a public service--but makes a moral exception for brutal murder.
All the familiar Waters' elements are present: savvy pop cultural references, broad irony, the Greek chorus of popular opinion, media as funhouse mirror, a colorful celebration of trashiness, winks at the fandom mentality (Turner has a serial killer scrapbook; the kids market her face on tee-shirts), and the metamorphosizing beauty of Ricki Lake (halfway to slim here). It's worth a rental; it's light and cathartic, and the references to real serial killers and their lore are spot on--Hunting Humans is a real book, for instance, and a good one. Any movie that offers tips for supplemental reading material can't be all bad.
What you'll get for your money: Good clean fun, with multiple murders.
Watch for: Matthew Lillard,
two years before Scream, looking kinda cute. Listen for:
John Waters as the voice of Ted Bundy.
Natural Born Killers (1994)
To be rewatched and reviewed.
Kalifornia
(1993) -- David Duchovny, Brad Pitt, Michelle Forbes, Juliette Lewis
This is holy grail time for all
us dark-spirited Duchovny fans: David in black leather, being morbid, being
drunk, falling in love with a charismatic sociopath, being beaten. Why,
you could be reading the plotline of a thousand X-Files stories.
For those three of you huddled in the corner watching Braveheart, here's the capsule: Brian Kessler (Duchovny) is writing a book about serial killers and decides to take off on a cross-country trip from New York to California to visit their killing grounds and favorite diners. Girlfriend Carrie (Forbes) is coming along with him to shoot pictures. They need more cash to pay for the gas, so they put up an ad; along comes Early Grayce (Pitt) and his girline Adele (Lewis). The fab foursome set off on their road trip, which gradually declines into hell with pit-stops along the way for male bonding (pool and bar fights) and female bonding (hair styling and sob stories). Brian and Carrie are chic New York hipsters; Early and Adele are poor white trash. Early--rich irony--is also a serial killer.
In short, Brian gets a lof of great material for his book.
I liked this movie even before I was a Duchovny fan; in fact, the first time I watched it, my eyes were glued to the mesmerizing performances of Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis and I barely noticed the fine, pouty-lipped man whom I'd later come to adore. Lewis, if you give her credit, is astonishing--if she's not acting, she must be channeling her inner child or the spirt of a dim, damaged rabbit trying to cross the freeway. Compare Adele to Mallory, Lewis' character in Natural Born Killers, and you'll have bookends of good and evil--but both characters are born of the same waifish, conflicted source. Pitt nails his character just as hard; you always forget he can act until you see him strip off the prettiness as he does here.
Directed by Dominic Sena, whose only other past credit at this point is Gone in Sixty Seconds. That's hard to believe, but okay. Written by Steven Levy and Tim Metcalfe. Metcalfe has credit for contributing to Revenge of the Nerds. Go figure. But he also directed Killer: A Journal of Murder.
What you'll get for your money: Good location shots, killer characterization, a must-see.
Watch for: Early and Brian bonding outside the bar.
Where
Sleeping Dogs Lie (1992) -- Dylan McDermott, Charles
Finch, Sharon Stone
Hopefully, you can get this on cable.
Okay, it's not that bad. But it's more of a thriller than a satisfying serial killer movie. It's also predictable, and Dylan's character is weirdly unlikeable, and Sharon Stone is just annoying. Charles Finch is pretty good though, and there's some slashiness that lives at the "creepy vibe" end of the spectrum. That, and Dylan's yumminess, would be the only reasons to watch this movie.
Now I'm going to spoil it: cranky frustrated writer can't write for shit. Writer is also a realtor (huh?) and after getting booted from apartment decides to move into this great white elephant of a house he's been asked to sell. Moves in, finds out it's the home of a murdered family. Begins writing book. Creepy guy moves in and rents a room from him. Writer acts like self-absorbed twat. Creepy guy behaves like a besotted suitor. La la la, oh wait, creepy guy is in fact the killer who murdered the family! Duh! Fear and loathing. Writing. Chit-chat. Creepy guy leaves. A smidge more plot happens. The end.
What you'll get for your money: Cable, I said. Don't pay money. That aside: as mentioned, there is some slashiness, and Dylan is unquestionably gorgeous. The house is gorgeous too. And there are some nice creepy moments. That's it.
Listen for: Music to listen to on your headphones as you're falling asleep.
Jennifer 8 (1992)
To be rewatched and reviewed.
Silence of
the Lambs (1991) -- Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn
This established the conventions
for serial killer flicks. What went before--Psycho, The Stepfather,
Criminal Law, Apartment Zero, and so on--were all over the map in terms
of style and focus, and viewed mostly in isolation. From this point on,
movies in the genre would be measured against Silence of the Lambs.
We expect certain familiar elements now: a charismatic killer, a tense
and often intimate relationship between killer and law enforcement (or
between killer and victims), forensic clues, psychological profiling, deliberate
gaming ("catch me if you can"), and macabre detail. There were many imitators,
and the fascination for this new style of manhunt spilled over and helped
create a more sophisticated popular audience for true crime paperbacks,
the novels of Patricia Cornwell, television shows like Silk Stalkings
and X-Files, reality programming, and hundreds of straight-to-video
knock-offs that I'll never bother to review.
Anthony Hopkins is Dr. Hannibal Lecter, one of two serial killers in the flick; Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, the FBI agent who must pick Lecter's brain in order to solve a series of murders. 'Set a killer to catch a killer' is the FBI's plan, but Starling has to catch Lecter's personal interest first in order to make the trick work.
If you've somehow missed this before now, beware: this isn't for the faint of heart. This is one of the most explicit movies out there in terms of morbid and violent detail. Unlike Seven, though, we do get a tiny sense of closure with our menace. You can't take many reassurances from this--if you're smart you'll rediscover a fear of strange men and parking lots at night--or hey, you might be inspired to work out and join the FBI.
Directed by Jonathan Demme (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild, Married to the Mob, Philadelphia). Based on the novel by Thomas Harris.
What you'll get for your money: The definitive serial killer flick, Jodie Foster, two interesting maniacs, FBI detail, forensic detail, well-delivered suspense.
Watch for: Lecter--artist, epicure, and gourmet--who ironically delivers the movie's few touches of 'class'. Ahem.
Criminal Law (1988) -- Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Joe Don Baker, miscellaneous females
The opening moments of the movie gives us this quote by Nietzsche: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." This same quote was used for the title of Robert Ressler's 1992 book on serial killers, Whoever Fights Monsters, and has become a familiar motto for forensic psychologists and criminalists everywhere. It can be recognized as the shaping spirit behind Mulder's behavior in the X-Files episode "Grotesque", and it's also the influence for a lot of bad movies. This is one of those movies.
It's a shame, because it has potential--Gary Oldman, brutal murders, angst, legal intrigue, a guilty client who unfortunately goes free by grace of his lawyer. It could have been another Primal Fear. Instead, it's more like Dumb Dismay. From the opening shot of Oldman's atrocious pompador to the closing shot of something I've gratefully forgotten, this movies trudged through a field of muddy cliches until it reached its open grave and collapsed into oblivion. It's not ludicrously bad. You could rent it and not feel sick afterwards. On the other hand, I just finished watching it ten minutes ago and not a single detail stands out in my mind. It has already become a vague smear of stale southern noir.
Oh, wait--one detail does stand out--an appalling bedroom scene in which Oldman animalistically writhes on the bed with his plain-looking chick: the sex becomes frenzied, Oldman appears to be strangling her, and then all of a sudden he's lying across Kevin Bacon, trying to kill him or fuck him or both. It sounds more exciting than it is, so don't rent it just for that. In context, any homoeroticism will be negated by confusion as you try to figure out what the hell this scene is doing in the film.
I will say that a good friend likes this film quite a lot, and I trust her opinion, so I may have missed the mark on this. Don't be afraid to give it a whirl, especially if you like Gary Oldman and Kevin Bacon and there's nothing on HBO.
Directed by Martin Campbell, who's responsible for The Mask of Zorro, a few episdoes of Homicide, and GoldenEye. (Hey, did you remember that Sean Bean is in GoldenEye? I didn't. Go rent it now!)
What you'll get for your money: Well...it's better than...oh, never mind.
Listen for: At a few points during the film, Oldman sounded strangely like Roy Dupuis to me.
The Vanishing (Spoorloos, Dutch, 1988) -- Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege
Now, I'm not a foreign-film freak. You won't find me browsing that rarefied section of the video store in pursuit of some obscure masterpiece from the 1960s with subtitles, all the while sneering at contemporary American movies. But I do think that one of the worst film crimes of the century was the American remake of The Vanishing. I suppose you might argue a tie of horror with the remake of La Femme Nikita; it's hard to say who's more excruciating to watch, Bridget Fonda or Sandra Bullock.The truly astonishing and sad thing is that George Sluizer, the director of the original, directed the remake as well. The mind boggles.
DO NOT WATCH THE AMERICAN VERSION OF THIS FILM!
Or, if you do, watch it after the original. Please. I'm begging you. You should easily be able to find the Dutch version in both mainstream and marginal video stores, and the title will probably be listed in English as The Vanishing. If you fear you might confuse these two movies of the same name, note: the American version has Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Nancy Travis, and Sandra Bullock. Be on the lookout for Jeff's big ol' face, and drop-kick the box behind a set of shelves if you have a chance. Trust me and make the right choice--the subtitles won't be so bad.
This is a well crafted and disturbing movie, with a great performance by Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu as Raymond Lemorne, our serial killer. The details and nuances of the original--the ambiance of the countryside, the busy traveler's stop, Raymond's methodical practice and preparation for killing, the relationship Raymond has with his family--are distinctly European, just like Donnadieu's bland but complicated face. It's difficult to imagine this particular criminal removed from his habitat; it's difficult but not impossible, which is why I gave the remake a chance. Serial killing, after all, is part of the American consciousness and landscape and we usually do it well. But the subtleties of this original were obviously a challenge to recapture, and Sluizer failed painfully in doing so. I blame Sandra, and whoever was responsible for the new ending, and Hollywood, and God.
What you'll get for your money: Darkly charming atmosphere and performances, a serial killer in the classical style.
Watch for: The superficially gratuitous scene with the spiders--it's actually a plot point.
Apartment Zero (1988) -- Hart Bochner, Colin Firth
A dark, strange little cult film set in Buenos Aires. Hart Bochner's the enigmatic American who rents Firth's apartment; Firth's the eccentric Brit whose mother is dying of dementia. A string of murders is shocking the city, and a group of political activists is trying to identify mercenaries responsible for political atrocities--but that's a suprisingly irrelevant background to the homoerotic and codependent relationship being played out between Jack (Bochner) and Adrian (Firth).
The most striking thing I realized after rewatching this film is that this surely has to be the prototype for Krycek / Pendrell slash fandom. I steadfastly believe that all P/K devotees out there must have seen this film at an impressionable age and been doomed to carry the standard for romantic love between nerd and sociopath. Watch with this in mind and I swear you'll finish the film saying, "Oh, yeah, wow. I see it, dude." Most of the rest of us were influenced by the slashiness of this film in a broader sense, and probably by the morbidity as well.
I find that I don't have much else to say about this film. Bochner is charismatic and creepy; Firth is a tidy little nutjob. The murders themselves are relegated to the shadows, and we don't learn a whole heck of a lot about Bochner's character, Jack Carney. Still, this is worth watching for its atmosphere of South American noir and heavy subtext.
Directed by Martin Donovan, who's done...some other stuff.
What you'll get for your money: Slashiness, miasma, a nice ensemble cast of annoying neighbors, etc.
Watch for: Sociopaths are always kind to transvestites. It's sweet, really.
The Stepfather (1987) -- Terry O'Quinn, Shelley Hack, and nobody else notable
Here's one of the best little serial killer movies you've probably never heard of. What...you have? To hell with you then. See if I try to edify you again.
For the rest of you, here's an introduction to a bloody fun film. Chronologically speaking, this came out four years before Silence of the Lambs, but one year after The Deliberate Stranger. It resembles neither. I'm not sure in what precise criminal characterization this portrait is rooted, but I'm sure there are guys out there like this; who kill their families then move on, starting afresh a cycle of cracked idealism and homicidal disappointment.This is no spoiler, by the way--we learn quickly who the monster is in this film. The suspense is in waiting to see whether he will get found out.
Terry O'Quinn is modestly brilliant in this; the role is a perfect showcase for his talents. If that name seems vaguely familiar, O'Quinn is a busy character actor who usually plays supporting roles. He was Peter Watts in Millenium.
Directed by Joseph Ruben, whose done a lot of moody stuff, including The Good Son, Sleeping with the Enemy, and True Believer. Written by Donald E. Westlake. Westlake has written a bunch of novels and screenplays, but his best known big-screen successes are probably The Grifters and Payback.
There were two sequels to Stepfather. Don't bother. While the original is usually described as an "A+" of B movies, the follow-ups descend quickly to bottom-shelf lameness.
What you'll get for your money: Damn fine acting, suburban creepiness, a big fucking knife.
Watch for: The workshop scenes.
The Deliberate Stranger (1986, made for TV) -- Mark Harmon
I don't know how easy it would be to find a copy of this in your local video store, but it's currently being sold in VHS through Amazon.com and elsewhere. If you're really interested in studying serial killers, this is worth getting; it's about a real killer, Ted Bundy, and it delineates his career well. The virtue of made-for-tv movies is that they aren't afraid to plod prosaically through the details of a true crime story, unlike major motion pictures, which usually have to go for the jugular in two hours or less. This clocks in at a little over three hours; or double nights if you were watching on network television. Almost a miniseries by those standards.
Bundy, if you didn't already know, is the posterboy for contemporary serial killers--he was charming on the outside, cracked on the inside, intelligent, slippery, and ruthless. He'd been pegged for a career in law and maybe even politics, and acquaintances found it hard to believe his guilt. A striking coincidence was his friendship with Ann Rule, the crime author, who later wrote The Stranger Beside Me (a book I highly recommend and that parallels the movie closely). Though Bundy was surely a moral whackjob, some believed he had an unconscious wish to be captured. After he was caught he articulated a causal connection between pornography, objectification and violence which psychologists and cultural commentators picked up and ran with. He died in the electric chair in Florida for the Chi Omega sorority killings, the atrocity he's most well known for. However, this was only the final chapter in a long history of killing. Before he fled across the country to Florida, he'd worked primarily in the Pacific Northwest, practicing at the same time and in the same general area as the Green River Killer. He consistently chose women with long dark hair, parted in the middle. Though he was never convicted for those murders, the movie--like Rule's book--makes a strong case for his guilt.
Both the book and the movie capture the charisma that was attributed to Bundy, and in doing so tend to glamorize him. He comes across the Great Houdini of serial killers; elusive, smart, and charming. The details surrounding his kidnappings were, in fact, breathtaking; he also escaped not just once but twice from jail. (The second time he made it to Florida.) I somehow doubt that Bundy, in real life, was as attractive as Mark Harmon. Or maybe I just hope that.
Directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, whose credits go way, way back. This guy's been in the business for a long time and seems to have directed mostly for television, though he stretched himself to direct Tank. Ahem. Written by Hesper Anderson.
What you'll get for your money: One of the best true stories of a serial killer, and one of most fascinating.
Watch for: The moment when that charming mask shatters.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) -- Michael Rooker
This is the real deal. This is the grotesquerie of serial killing, unvarnished, unpretty. Based on the real life of Henry Lee Lucas. There's a good review by someone named "bwaynef" on IMdB. Read that for now until I rewatch and review this.
Directed by John McNaughton, who
also did Wild Things, some Homicide eps, etc.
What you'll get for your money:
Stuff.
Watch for: Stuff.
Black Widow (1986)
To be reviewed.
Halloween (1978)
What you'll get for your money:
Watch for:
Psycho (1960, 1998)
To be reviewed.
To Be Reviewed Someday--or Possibly Crossed Off This List...
Mister Frost (1990) -- Jeff
Goldblum, Alan Bates, Kathy Parker
Relentless (1989) -- Judd
Nelson
The Hitcher (1986) -- Rutger
Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Single White Female (1992)
-- Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bridget Fonda
Heathers (1989) -- Winona
Ryder, Christian Slater (black comedy)
Night Game (1989) -- Roy
Scheider, Karen Young
Tightrope (1984) -- Clint
Eastwood
Sudden Impact (1983) --Clint
Eastwood
Sea of Love (1989) -- Al
Pacino, John Goodman, Ellen Barkin
The Cell (2000)
M (1931) -- Peter Lorre
Stendhal Syndrome (La
Sindrome di Stendhal, 1996)
Summer of Sam (1999) -- John
Leguizamo, Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Esposito
Confessions Of A Serial Killer
(1985) -- Robert A. Burns
Diary of a Serial Killer
(aka Rough Draft, 1997) -- Gary Busey
The Butcher Boy (?)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
-- Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Hitchcock
Frenzy (1972) -- Hitchcock
Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of
a Serial Killer
Manhunter (1986) -- William
L. Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Dennis Farina
The Mean Season (1985) --
Kurt Russell, Mariel Hemingway, Andy Garcia
Monsieur Verdoux (1947) --
Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles (writer)
Badlands (1973) -- Sissy
Spacek, Martin Sheen, Terrence Malick (director)
Rampage (1988) -- Michael
Biehn
Man Bites Dog -- (aka, C'est
arrivé près de chez vous, 1992, black comedy)
The Boston Strangler (1968)
-- Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, George Kennedy, Sally Kellerman
The China Lake Murders (1990,
TV) -- Tom Skerritt
Cobra (1986) -- Sylvester
Stallone
Out of the Darkness (1985,
TV) -- Martin Sheen (Son of Sam)
Cruising (1980) -- Al
Pacino
Peeping Tom (1960)
Killer Nanny movies (The Hand
that Rocked the Cradle etc)
(*) Crime Classification Manual -- John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess, and Robert K. Ressler.
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