I've had a really good October so far! Four days and four good movies! ...Yeah, it's time for that streak to stop dead in its tracks! I'm reviewing an Ulli Lommel film!...
For those who don't know who Ulli Lommel is, he's a German filmmaker, who was good (I wholeheartedly recommend Revenge of the Stolen Stars!), but now is an awful, awful one! His movies from the last decade or so are all indescribably awful! You'll see why soon, since this movie is basically what most of his other movies are-plotless movies abut real-life serial killers.
Night Stalker starts with a bad voice-actor monologuing about how people are 'hypocrital maggots', intercut with black-and-white shots of people getting gunned down, and the narrator dying. His narration ends with him saying that he'll be avenged, then for the next four minutes, as the opening credits go on, we get even more black-and-white shots of people getting shot.
When that's over, the narrator, Richard Ramirez (Adolph Cortez), starts a mysoginistic tirade against women. His uncle Mike was a women-hater as well, and as Rich is dragged from the street by two hookers (I think)-who I guess show people a good time, whether the clients want it or not!-he decides to follow his uncle's advice-kill women. Then Richard, who's too busy with his lollipop to want to do anything with the women, narrates what is possibly the worst line in a movie ever!-"I'm the candyman! I hate the power of pussy!". Oh, and by the way, the whole movie thus far has only had voiceover narration, over characters actually talking. It doesn't get any better!
Next, the movie finally lets its characters speak. After having a bizarro superimposed flashback, Richard storms off, and the two women talk about how strange he is-Um, ladies, YOU PICKED UP A RANDOM GUY FROM THE STREET AGAINST HIS WILL! YOU'RE STRANGE!
Richard has a proper flashback to his uncle. Uncle Mike tells young Richard about his Vietnam days, and how he collected ears (insert Universal Soldier joke here). This angers his wife, and Mike loses it and shoots her and Richard's mother to death (and the actor playing kid Richard tries to act scared, but he looks like he's trying not to laugh!).
Some time later, late at night, Richard sneaks into a woman's house and shoots her. And you can tell by this actress' expression just how 'terrified' she is!
That's her expression to seeing a nutjob in her shower pointing a gun at her! And her expression only gets duller just as she's dispatched by a few gunshots.
Richard goes back to his home and dreams about murders he's committed, while narrating some more. A while later, he leaves and walks down a street, and sees a 'woman from his nightmares'-'blond and green-eyed, he calls her, even though she's a brunette! After several minutes of him following her (for the viewer, that is! This scene goes on forever!) they walk away together she a satanist she and a friend talk to Richard about satanism and how awesome the they think it is, in a scene that is painfully repetitious! The film then loses its mind for a little while, with the three...um, doing domething, with Richard murdering some woman superimposed over the shot, while the trio's distorted voices yell 'hail satan'.
After that, Richard goes hunting again. After nearly four minutes of a couple bitching inanely, Rich finally breaks into their house and shoots them, while talking in a booming demon voice.
Sometime later, Richard sees another 'princess of darkness', and he follows her for days on end, eventually approaching her. She turns out to be a christian, and they go somewhere else and get talking. She talks about Jesus, and church, and before you can say "Caroline Munro in Maniac", Richard shoots her. Well so much for the film actually having a plot...
Rich starts drinking the woman's blood (apparently that gunshot to the cheek killed her), and there's suddenly a mindfuck of superimposed shots, blaring noise, a woman orgasming, and Richard murdering someone.
That above image might look like I took it while the scene was changing, but no, that's what the whole scene is like!
Next, Richard starts narrating again, and his narration turns from English to demon or something. Then we see another annoying bickering couple
Then Richard does something horrible...He smears a rasberry jam pentagram on the woman's chest!...Yeah, as you can imagine this film's effects aren't eactly great, but I'll give the movie a pass-more on that later.
After another scene with the two satanists, the film cuts to another annoying bickering couple!
After another time jump, we cut to another random victim. Unlike all the others in the movie, this actress actually acts distressed at seeing a guy with a gun about to shoot her ear-piercing soundtrack
The movie again continues showing Rich walking around aimlessly, while the soundtrack whispers demonically. After several minutes of that, we cut to another bickering couple!
really bad fighting bit! Ulli Lommel's idea of pointing at the fighting couple isn't filming them at another angle, but flipping parts of the footage around, so every few seconds, the couple switch sides, yet it's very obvious that the camera hasn't moved, because of the painting on the wall!...
some what looks like bad dubbing line flubs
The main actor in this film, Adolph (wow, life must suck with that name!) Cortez is pretty bad. always swishing his head around. I tried doing that, and I got a little dizzy-if I did it as often as this actor, I'd probably get a headache!
The rest of the acting is pretty bad.
Lommel, gunshots to the cheek don't kill people!
Everyone who gets shot in this movie only show signs of annoyance or dullness when shot!
The film's main tune is pretty ok (think the 'I am lightning' scene from Metal Gear Solid 4), but the film just keeps playing it, over, and over, and over, and then I started having flashbacks to Night of freakin' Horror and its perpetual Freebird soundalike of a theme!
Night Stalker's gore effects range from ok to pretty bad, but this is a very low budgeted movie (presumably a grand and a half, like most of, if not all of Lommel's films like these), so I'll mostly give them a pass.
Plot problems where did evil chick go? Why doesn't Richard change clothes, cut his hair, or stop eating lollipops?! The cops know what he look like! And so do the public!
Speaking of the plot, there isn't one! The film is just Richie monologuing, walking around, and killing people. There's no plot, character development, plot, any character to anyone in ths film, no plot, the film has about a dozen scenes of annoying couples bickering for several minutes, prior to getting killed by Richie, and did I mention that this film has no plot?
So, in closing, Ulli Lommel's Night Stalker is awful, but it's not the worst of Ulli's films...no, this movie here, it's one of the better awful ones of his filmography! Yeah! That's right! Be scared, folks!
The film does at least get some credit from me though, since in one scene, there's a poster of Emanuelle Around the World on the wall!...You have to have some awesomely screwed up taste in movies to know what the hell I'm talking about!...
The reason some people were shot in the cheek is because most of Richard Ramirez's victims lived. He was accused of 45 attacks and only 13 murders. He wore the same thing when he was out killing people but it was not a leather jacket and he did not eat lollipops in real life. Because not all of his victims died, the police had a description of him and still couldn't catch him. Did you not realize this is based on a real person? This movie is not just a fictional gore movie. Do some research.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant was that in this movie, that character who gets shot in the cheek actually dies. Or if she did survive, the movie didn't show any indication that she did.
ReplyDeleteYes, I know it's based on a real person. I know plenty about Richard Ramirez. And as for him not changing his looks at all, well sometimes real life can be just as stupid as movies.