Murderlust

My review was written in June 1987 after watching the movie on Prism video cassette.

"Murder Lust", a B-feature originally titled "Mass Murderer" during production two years ago, takes a rather interesting premise (i.e., treating a deranged serial kill sympathetically) and wastes it via poor production values and execrable acting. Filmmaker Donald Jonesco-directed (with Mikel Angel) the more successful black comedy version of this theme, "The Love Butcher", a decade ago.

Eli Rich, a stone-faced thesp, portrays Steve Belmont, a seemingly okay guy who works as a security guard and does Sunday School volunteer work as a teacher. Twist is he covers up his impotence with women by picking up prostitutes, strangling them and throwing the bodies down a ravine out in the desert.

Besides his psychosis, Steve is burdened with numerous other problems: falling behind in his rent, losing his job when he's nasty to a woman, harassed by his mean cousin (Dennis Gannon) who hires him as a janitor in his store, etc. He's also trying to get away with faking his nonexistent college degrees to land a cushy job running an adolescent crisis unit at the Sunday school, which his girlfriend (Rochelle Taylor) rightly figures could be a focal point for the serial killer to seek out victims.

He's pushed over the edge when she gets the crisis unit's funding delayed until the killer is apprehended, putting Steve into a Catch-22 situation since he's the killer.

Painting such a monster as an outwardly kindly, community service-oriented chap is an effective story ploy, most tellingly esayed by Richard Attenborough in "10 Rillington Place". Here topline Rich is woefully inadequate, reading most of his lines as if reciting the phone book. Supporting cast, including several of the crew members in dual assignments, is nondescript. Tech credits are threadbare, not helped by a shrill synthesized musical score by writer-producer James Lane.

A disgruntled bachelor in Greater Los Angeles (Eli Rich) hops from job to job while being a faithful churchgoer. He vents his negative energy by preying on females.

Shot on weekends in twelve days, "MurderLust" (1985) wasn't released to video until 1987. Like the slightly superior "Hitch Hike to Hell" (1977), it's a prosaic psychological study of a serial killer. That flick used The Co-ed Killer as a template, Edmund Kemper. His victims from 1972-1973 were six female students who happened to be hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, an hour's drive south of San Francisco. The scriptwriter of this movie researched Ten Bundy and the Hillside Stranglers. Bundy's reign of terror took place from 1974-78 whereas the crimes of The Hillside Stranglers involved a dozen victims between 1977-78.

Besides being reminiscent of the obscure "Hitch Hike to Hell," the straightforward tone is similar to "Targets" and maybe "The Toolbox Murders." Yet this isn't a slasher like the latter since the five victims are all strangled, not to mention there's very little gore. Being a psychological study, the focus is on the killer's routine day-to-day life, which will strike many viewers as dull. The no-name actor smacks of a poor man's Jon Voight.

Ashley St. Jon is notable as the too-young blonde prostitute, but her role is too small. She happened to be a dancer in the Los Angeles area and is the only female to appear top nude in the movie, briefly. As the story proceeds, Rochelle Taylor is the one who rises to the fore as the proverbial 'final girl,' Cheryl.

While it's easy to look down on these types of films, there are some well-done parts, such as the climax that symbolizes wandering through the desert of this world like a lost zombie, wounded and dying. Additionally, I like the interesting reflection on the masculine spirit, which is very much a positive thing in our world, generally speaking, but if it becomes contaminated by bitterness or what have you, it veers toward self-destruction, abuse, misogyny, and murder.

For anyone who might criticize the film as anti-Christian, it's not. It's just showing the reality of mentally troubled (and hypocritical) people hiding their dark side behind a respectable garnishment. For instance, I know faithful churchgoers who brazenly murder people with their tongues every day; sad, but true.

It runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, and was shot in Pomona (the church) and Upland (the pub), which are a 30-35 minutes drive due east of downtown Los Angeles; other scenes were done in the city proper and the Mojave Desert, the latter located 3-4 hours northwest of the city.

GRADE: B-

This dull and practically bloodless "thriller" tries hard to draw a smart and ambitious portrait of an atypical serial killer, but fails - and painfully - on every level. The main reason why "Murderlust" is unable to convince (or convince me, at least) is because the contrast between the two personas of the murderer/protagonist is too enormous and far too implausible. The guy, Steve Belmont, supposedly is a conservative Sunday school teacher and a respected member of a small catholic community during the weekend. But from Monday to Friday he lives - in that same small catholic community - in a flat that looks like a sleazy motel room, gets fired from simple security guard jobs and cruises around in a B.A. Baracus van to pick up prostitutes and wayward teen girls, so that he can strangle and dump them in the Mojave desert. Seriously, who believes that?

Other reviewers referred to "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" already. Why is that movie so effective and considered to be a cult/horror classic? Simple, because Michael Rooker - as Henry - is genuinely petrifying. Steve is never menacing, not even when he puts a gun against an innocent girl's head and forces her to cure his impotence. If this isn't bad enough already, "Murderlust" is also boring, monotonous, slow, and most of the amateur cast members can't even properly articulate.

Murderlust (1985) is a very low budget film about a Sunday school teacher who seems like a popular guy with his fellow teachers, but in his spare time he likes to pick up young women (mainly hookers) and kill them (mostly by strangling).

Like i say the film was very low budget but also pretty boring, all of the killings were off-screen and there was hardly any blood at all, and no gore whatsoever, the acting was also pretty lame to be honest, and the storyline was pretty flat and routine.

All in all a very rare horror film to find, but thats because it's just not very good at all, stick with Henry: Portrait of a serial killer, it's far superior in every way to this poor effort!!! 3/10

Here I am the first to review this film here, I guess it's just that difficult to find. but I'm honored to be the first, although maybe only five people may read this within the next 5 years. Well I heard of the film from a book, sounded like a slasher film, so I thought i'd buy it. I finally tracked the darn film down.

I put on the film, expecting some blood, a couple of slashings, but got none of that. Just got a film about a depressed guy out to kill a couple of prostitutes. Nothing bloody there. But the most surprising moment is when i saw Bonny Schnieder in the film, me being from long island, i watch channel 12 News. Bonny Schneider is one of the weatherwoman on the channel. I was shocked to see her play a prostitute in this film. I'm guessing she was helping out a friend while in college who was studing film, or maybe she tried the acting, even though this was her only film. Oh well, I found that quiet interesting.

I always find it interesting to find a film that is so rare and no longer watched by anyone. When i find films such as these, I see them as a time capsule, caputuring the beauty of the slasher rise in the 80's. Although this movie wasnt anything special, we should all dig them all up and start worshipping them, they deserve it:)