Freeway Killer

The movie itself wasn't so bad. However the storyline could've been fleshed out a little bit more. My pet peeve was that the movie was filled with so many Anochronisms, it threw the story off a bit. This was set around 1979-1980, but it looked very low budget. There were modern cars everywhere, besides the ones used by the actors themselves. The convenience store was riddled with current versions of consumer products, Bonin's alarm clock was digital, etc. Just seems like they didn't make a good effort at setting the theme of the movie to have been in the past. It was shot more like a student film on a shoestring budget.

Well, I just finished watching this and I must say I'll be looking forward to seeing Scott Leet in the future. What a performance! He alone made this movie worth watching. And no, I'm not a friend of his, but I certainly am a fan now. His take on the main character was just pure genius. As a fan of horror-thrillers, he has my vote for "best performance of a psychopath" ever. I thought he was as good as Jack Nicholsen was in The shining. Yeah, that friggin' good!!! Watch for yourself and pay attention to the many expressions and micro-expressions he pulls off throughout the entire flick.

Those who rated this a "1" should be ashamed. If you don't like a movie give it a 3 or 4. To give a "1" means you don't fully understand the "1-10 scale". Unfortunately, a great many people don't, which is why a lot of movies get passed on without a second thought.

I hope many of you don't pass on this because of the low rating like I almost did. You will have really missed out.

I live in Romania, we don't get that many movies on DVD, especially movies like this one. I am a big horror fan, so when I looked on my torrents site and I've that this movie it's billed as horror, crime, thriller, I instantly downloaded it.

It has a low budget, and you can see that, especially cause this movie is set in the late 70s, but the cars are from nowadays. But it doesn't matter. Scott Lee as William Bonin is great ! I never heard about this guy, but I was really impressed and I will keep an eye on his works.

It's a great little movie, with unknown actors, that makes wonder what's gonna happen.

8/10

Reading the reviews, one of them stated that this was an other 'Henry' (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer). I do have to disagree on that comment. An other 'Henry' it is definitely not. What made 'Henry' so interesting, especially in that time, is the dark, grim and depressing feeling of realism. 'Freeway Killer' is a lot more cleaned up.

Bonin was a real MF, who murdered out of lust. He raped his victims before he killed them, and also tortured quite a few of them. The fact that he was a lust murderer is only vaguely hinted at in this movie, but not more than that. The part of the torture is left out completely. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing for the viewer, but it would make the movie a lot more realistic, both in feeling but also in showing what his motives were.

And that's an other point I would like to make. Bonin was abused as a child, probably by his grandfather, and definitely when he was in a juvenile detention center for the theft of license plates. This background of child abuse shaped him into an abuser first and later into a merciless killer. But, in 'Freeway Killer', there are only some subtle hints of this troubled childhood.

Instead of focusing on Bonin's motives and background, this movie focuses more on the time before his arrest and his relationships with some of his accomplices.

Now, that having said, I do want to point out that 'Freeway Killer' is not a bad movie. The casting was good, thankfully definitely in appearance. Both Scott Leet and Dusty Sorg look like the real killers, which is something I find pretty important. I was impressed by the acting of Dusty Sorg, his acting looked very natural, but the acting of Scott Leet was not bad either. He managed very well in giving Bonin a good streak of madness. And that was most effective when he went from charming to predator in a split second.

Freeway Killer doesn't stand out the way 'Henry' does. Though the subject is dark, it is not a movie that will make you turn away your head. Which makes it watchable for a broader audience. There is hardly any blood and the few murder scenes are chilling but leave most to the imagination. If you find this a good or a bad thing is totally up to your idea of what a good serial killer movie defines. About background information, 'Freeway Killer' does nothing more than giving hints. This goes for his childhood, his development into a serial killer (which is left out), and also the way he was finally caught. Still, the hints are there, and it does stay reasonably true to the facts.

Overall, I have seen better. But I also have seen a lot, lot worse. I am somewhere in between giving this movie 6+ or 7- points, and for now I lean towards a 7-.

My brother and the brother of my best friend, was victims of Bonin. I found this movie very incomplete about the true facts. Bonin killed over 16 young men, he was only convicted of 14. Bonin and his minions, would use Chloroform to knock the victims out, they would then have sex with them and then kill them. The night when he was arrested he was in the act of abusing a young hustler in a gas station parking lot in Hollywood. Bonin was killing young men in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas for years. He was even on parole. He was on parole for the same thing. He was not under police watch. No one knew who The Freeway Stranglar was until he was arrested. He lived on Death Row for over 12 years.