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45%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #10,582
...out of 20,869 movies
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A young woman, fascinated with mass murderers, tracks down the world's most famous uncaught serial killer and becomes his apprentice; together they go on a killing spree.
--IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: November 26, 2004
Butch Harlow is a serial killer who has been racking up quite the impressive body count, as we see in our opening scene. After a fair bit of violent imagery (seemingly taken from "Faces Of Death" films), we cut on over to Serena Stalin (Ariauna Albright), who is parking her car in front of your average suburban home. She knocks on the door, posing as an Avon lady, and is greeted by Walt Lipske (James L. Edwards), your average suburban home-dweller. He invites her into his house, some discussion is had, and then we get down to the real reason why Serena has shown up to Walt's house. Serena says that she knows that Walt is really Butch Harlow, and has left a letter with a friend with all of the details, including his address, and all of that information will go to the police if she doesn't get what she wants. What she wants turns out to be some schooling in the fine art of becoming a serial killer, and Walt reluctantly agrees. They rack up quite the nice body count together (ten total deaths before the credits roll), and start to fall in love with each other while doing so. With the help of Walt, Serena severs her ties with her previous boyfriend Rupert (Randy Rupp), and moves in with Walt. A nice little murdering rampage ensues, some relationship problems start to boil, jealousy issues arise, things are smoothed over, and the process continues until the shocker of a finale.
On one of the special features of the DVD, somebody made mention that this movie was made for less than the price of a used car. While I can't verify the truth behind that, I certainly wouldn't doubt it; there's some serious sound issues in a couple of spots, shaky camera usage in others, and some incredibly bad gore effects in sprinkled around elsewhere. However, these few flaws did not a bad movie make, not by a long shot. The storyline, though slow in a few spots near the beginning, quickly picks up pace and keeps you interested from beginning to end, and never slows down or starts to feel repetitive. Yes, there's a large number of kills throughout the run-time, but it never turns into one of those boring slasher films where each scene is simply another setup for another victim to receive a knife to the gut. Each scene is given the appropriate time to build up the suspense, and each victim gets some time to shine before meeting their maker. Wrapping the movie up is quite the shocker of an ending, one which I never saw coming. When you manage to pull a surprise from this horror veteran, you must be doing something right.
The cast made the movie that much better, which was another one of the shockers from such a low-budget movie. I certainly wasn't expecting much in that department, but this movie had a surprisingly great cast. Ariauna Albright (Serena) is quite good in her role, almost managing to steal the show with her performance. The only reason she doesn't end up stealing the show is due to the performance pulled out by James L. Edwards (Walt). The man is so great in his role, pulling out an uncannily good role as the normal-joe-turned-serial-killer. The goodness doesn't stop there, however... there's a fair number of other good performances from even the victims found here. Chris (Joseph A. Daw) plays a bar patron who decides to try his luck with Serena, with less than stellar results, while Randy Rupp plays Serena's drunkard of an ex-boyfriend. Both actors are also good in their roles, giving out some nice performances before receiving their moment at the end of a weapon. Scooter McCrae (director of the classic Shatter Dead) makes a small cameo appearance as Boog, a burnt-our video store junkie. The man is multi-talented, as not only can he make a good movie, but also play a good character in someone else's movie. Major props to him.
Overall, worth the time to check this movie out. It came off kinda like "Natural Born Killers", but with much more emphasis placed on the killing, while still retaining the relationship moments that kept things moving along. If you were a fan of "Natural Born Killers" and don't require a multi-million dollar budget to enjoy a movie, then you'd most likely enjoy this one as well. True romance right here, baby. 9/10.
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#1:
Christopher
- added August 21, 2007 at 7:50pm
I knew McCrae looked familiar, I don't think many
others would appreciate his appearance though. The
movie itself was sweet, regardless. I can't
imagine how it hasn't been done in this style
before.
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