The Night Stalker

It's 2013. Kit (Bellamy Young) needs to get a confession from imprisoned killer Richard Ramirez (Lou Diamond Phillips) in San Quentin to exonerate her client scheduled to be executed in Texas in four days. Ramirez is a Satanist with fans, one of them being his adoring wife. There are flashbacks to teen Kit during the Night Stalker paranoia in the 1985 Los Angeles area as well as Ramirez's troubled life.

LDP has a good scraggly serial killer vibe but the interviews lack the scary horror intensity. The flashback structure doesn't allow for greater tension. Kit's journey does have a nice reveal but it may work better if the journey starts with a closer relationship to her client. The movie is simply missing something.

I'm going to agree with most of the written reviews here, and go against the overall score this movie got. I am usually very critical of TV movies, but this one was as good, or better, than most feature films.

I thought the acting was first-rate, and the direction was excellent, too. The movie had an aura of danger and suspense about it that most thrillers do not. Of course, that was aided by the foreboding music that lay beneath many of the scenes. But that's OK.

It also helped that the hero, if you want to call her that, was nearly as damaged as the bad guy. She had her own demons, and acted out in ways harmful to herself as a result of them. You don't often see that in these movies; usually the good guy is, well, good, and not nearly defined in depth as the one here was.

This was a good psychological thriller, with both main characters exhibiting deep flaws that are examined nicely.

I know the basic story of the Night Stalker was accurate; I don't know if the plot of the movie was, though. But still, it is very good.

My only complaint is regarding the credits, and has nothing to do with the movie itself. Here on IMDB Annalisa Cochrane as "Mary" gets top billing. That makes no sense; she is only in the movie for one brief scene. She isn't even close to being a main character. So why put her at the top of the cast credit?

It's like someone wrote a fanfiction based on Silence of the Lambs using Richard Ramirez as the bad guy. Clarise has demons in her past which affect her adult life; same with Kit in this movie. Kit's demons are somehow tied up with Ramirez's brutal murder spree. Like the fictional Hannibal Lechter, this fictional Ramirez senses that. I doubt the real Ramirez would have cared enough. That said, Lou Diamond Phillips was incredible in the role and the movie was mildly entertaining when it didn't make me roll my eyes. I wasn't surprised the movie was associated with Lifetime, though. Rating - 6/10.

Lou Diamond Phillips is Chilling and Brilliant in this account of the serial killer, Richard Ramirez aka The Night Stalker. Bellamy Young was miscast in her role opposite him. She is a very good actress but paled in comparison to her costar. She just seemed flat in their interactions which was a shame. If she had even tried to muster some intensity or strength, it would have made all the difference. Her character who was supposed to be a smart but slightly damaged lawyer, just came off as weak. The supporting cast was brilliant especially the young boy and man who played younger Richard. They not only looked exactly right but were fabulous in the part. The only thing that was troubling was the script which I felt was too sympathetic towards Ramirez.

Richard Ramirez, the Satan worshiping "Night Stalker", was someone whose crimes and life I was required to study years ago, one of other serial killers for a criminal justice class. He stood out at one of the more understandable, among the many I researched both from personal and academic interest, because of his background: traumatized in several ways from an early age. Ultimately, however, his crimes were horrendous, extreme and effectively should end any sympathetic tendencies towards him as a convicted criminal who confessed to many of his crimes.

Engrossing, chilling and brilliantly acted by Phillips, Ramirez was "Brought to life" with all his cold intelligence and vulnerabilities in place. The subtle expressions, or at times lack thereof, the shift of eyes, the sudden violence. I felt his performance wasn't quite matched by Bellamy Young, but she was entirely believable. She played the lawyer Katherine "Kit", trying to get a confession from him about a crime another was wrongly accused of. The film revolves around the conflict between the two, as she seeks to gain his trust to draw more details of his crimes, which he astutely ascertained, and he to gain something from her he was denied in prison: a female victim he could exploit for his own needs. He sensed vulnerabilities beneath her cool self-assured facade, and sought them out, whether from simple curiosity or true malignancy is for the viewer to decide.

Ramirez' history, his background and the traumas and events directly influencing what he became were shown through flashbacks, a wise choice considering Phillips age, and since he was portraying the killer shortly before his death. The young Ramirez' performance was okay, and the vaguely seen crimes and his eventual capture were understated but at the same time dramatic.

Though many details were left out about the crimes, and the most atmospheric part of the events: the intensity of the hot weather when most occurred was mostly absent, just references or dialogue. I felt that should have played more of a factor in filming, but overall "The Night Stalker" was well done. Rewatchable at least once, to catch nuances one may miss, a quick scene or glance from the characters eyes, I feel most viewers may be left with the truth of the matter. That it was a tragedy all around, absolutely for the victims, but also for Ramirez as a child and young teen. Sympathy for the terrorizing adult, a cruel rapist and murderer? No way.