This is not an easy movie to watch. Not only is the topic rather heavy, but the way the director shows the images is in the beginning very disturbing and tiresome: you constantly see two images at the same time, like the screen is split in a left and a right half! Sometimes it's two totally different images from two different story-lines, at other times it's just two different camera-angles of the same going-ons. At first I thought it would eventually turn to one image, or it would just get split-up again when there was some specific reason for it. But when it dawned on me that this would go on throughout the whole 105 minutes, it almost made me turn the thing off. Luckily I didn't, because gradually your eyes and brain apparently get used to this, and I have to say: the movie itself is really good!! It was advertised on my DVD-box as some sort of sequel to Kids or Ken Park movie, which I think doesn't justify it. Sure, it's got the same sense of documentary, young actors going about as if they're not acting at all, and camera's wavering about, and it's as candid in the way the different stories are told and shown. But it's a lot less superficial, you seem to get more into the characters of the persons, which at least enables you a little bit to comiserate and care for them. It's about some 5 young kids who all have reasons for frustrated feelings about sex and sexuality. Some in a very simple way, like the young village-girl with the raving strict father, who's dying for her first experience. Or the young virgin guy who gets forced by his drunk and roaring friends to visit a prostitute. In others it's more complicated: hidden homosexual feelings in a macho latino, or coping with the experience of a rape. The different story lines are cleverly woven into eachother, in a very natural way (witch is helped of course by the splitting of the screen) and somehow I didn't even notice it much when the story brought us to a Spanish or an American spoken scene. Of course you're not to expect any happy ending with this kind of bare, painfully honest movies, and the one here is equally depressing, just giving you the hope that everyone will somehow have learned something from his or her bad experiences. Maybe that's my main criticism: there's very little room for a smile, it's maybe all a bit too pitch-black. However: absolutely worth while. 8 out of 10.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Serial Killing 4 Dummys
(2004)
a pleasant surprise
12 March 2004
I bought the dvd very cheap, had never heard of this movie before, knew none of the actors by name and just went for the title (which incidentally on my copy just read: "Serial Killer"), the summary on the backside ("teen has an obsession to become a serial killer and looks for persons to test his skills on") and the genre-indication "horror". So I figured that I was in for some highschool slashing and akward acting (which can actually be quite amusing when you've nothing better to watch). Surprise!! This is no horror at all, not even scary, and I didn't even sense any pretension to be a parody for a horror-movie. It's just a very funny movie, based on a horror-like theme, which is of course totally unrealistic (a highschool teen who tells everyone that his career-prospective is to be a serial killer) but treated so consistently that you kind of get along with it. It's not hilarious, but has a dry, tongue-in-cheek kind of humour. There's some good acting (Justin Urich, who's very cute by the way, and the mother), and Thomas Haden Church's acting goes in a convincing and funny way totally over the top! I really had a great time watching it. So if anyone can get his hands on it: don't hesitate but buy it!!
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