The Corruption of Chris Miller

The Corruption of Chris Miller was a hard one to come by for many years, which gave it a mysterious street cred that was impossible to live up to. It's part melodrama and part giallo without really mixing them very well. Besides a splattery opening and a random series of killings right before the final act, it's not much of a traditional giallo or murder mystery and mostly focuses on a woman and her stepdaughter who are charmed by a mysterious drifter who may or may not be a killer who's been going around terrorizing people.

The film is slow as molasses for most of its runtime and you want to tell out "hurry up and get to the good stuff!" I'm normally a person who can enjoy a nice slow burn movie with the rest of them, but there's slow and then there's plotless. Most of the film is just a series of longing glances between the characters or long montages or horseback riding. They seem to be trying to build the tension between stepmother, stepdaughter, and the handsome drifter, but the script never really handles those moments very well. With better dialogue, perhaps those scenes would crackle with sexual tension.

The film is most definitely well shot and the scenes that take place during rainstorms drip with mood, but right as the film starts to get interesting, it ends with no resolution whatsoever. I'm also not a stickler for an ending that's tied up in a neat little bow, but after all that build up, it would have been nice if we were given something a little more interesting.