Murderlust

Those looking for graphic, bloody killings and exploitative elements will be sorely disappointed when watching this ultra-rare 80's obscurity. "Murderlust" has a very similar feel and simplistic style as "Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer," but the horrific murders in this case, tastefully happen off screen. The small budget works in favor of the movie, realistically showing the level of near poverty that the main character lives in. A low level security guard who also teaches Sunday school at his local church, Steve Belmont leads the ultimate double life. Among his church congregation, Steve is highly respected, and perceived as an upstanding, religious man. But his boss knows what a rude, heavy drinking dirt bag he really is. So does his neighbor, who lives next door to his disgusting dump of a rented room. Of course none of them know that Steve likes to pick up random women and strangle them to death. And things begin to unravel when his two worlds begin to overlap in this very tense, fascinating tale. "Murderlust" wouldn't be so effective if it wasn't for the impressive, highly believable acting job that Eli Rich turns in. He is amazingly believable as both the violent scumbag AND as the stand up pillar of the community that some think he is. His performance is chillingly authentic and understated. In fact the whole cast here is very good and appear quite natural in their roles. The fine acting and intelligent writing should earn this movie a much higher score than it has here. Obviously it wasn't seen by the right audience; in fact "Murderlust" is so rare that it most likely was seen by almost nobody. So if you are lucky enough to find a copy, and if you have an interest in the subject, I highly recommend it.

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-

Steve Belmont, Sunday school teacher and part-time security guard, has a big chip on his shoulder towards the opposite sex, and moonlights as a serial strangler.

"The Mojave Murderer" leads an interesting double life, but he never smiles and has trouble holding down a job. While on guard duty, he repeatedly threatens a woman (in front of his boss, who doesn't hear him!), gets the sack, and turns to his snot-nosed cousin/neighbor for a job as a supermarket janitor.

Things start looking up -- two or three victims later -- when Steve starts dating a woman he only comes close to killing. Then he gets a job as a psychologist! His misogynist tendencies come out in the end, though, and before he can finish off the girlfriend, she shoots him.

Director Don Jones has made some other sick movies about sociopaths, such as THE LOVE BUTCHER and SCHOOLGIRLS IN CHAINS. Although MURDERLUST isn't his most aberrant effort, it's a quite grim and disturbing rape fantasy. Mostly, it dwells on poorly staged stalking sequences that rely on women who conveniently walk right into the killer's arms. For example, an unshaven, sloppily-dressed Steve entices a school girl into his apartment with promises of making her a famous model. She buys this line of bull and, once they're isolated, finds a gun pointed at the top of her head, and demands sex before he strangles her.

In spite of this dubious expertise in showing women in pain, Jones gives even less credibility to the expository drama. Even after Steve knows the cops have found his stash of bodies in the desert, he continues to drop them off in the same place. To the film's credit, there is something sly about dropping this insufferable character among the well-manicured lawns of Southern California suburbia, where the cops don't bother him because he's white and wears a tie.

On Sundays, Steve Belmont (Eli Rich) works at his local church as a teacher for the Department of Christian Education; the rest of the week he earns a meagre crust as a security guard, and spends his spare time picking up and killing women (mostly hookers), disposing of their bodies in the Mojave Desert.

Murderlust is a low budget mid-'80s serial killer flick that isn't grimy, gory or sleazy enough to get under the skin in the way that a classic like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer does. Eli Rich is fairly effective as the killer, effortlessly switching from concerned, upstanding citizen to worthless scumbag, and his relationship with unsuspecting blonde Cheryl (Rochelle Taylor) is nicely developed, but the pace severely drags in places, with the frequent appearance of his nosy cousin Neil (Dennis Gannon) being particularly dull.

The most exploitative scene comes when Steve forces one of his young victims, a rather plain looking schoolgirl, to fellate him at gunpoint; the act is suggested rather than shown, but it still proves to be the film's most memorable moment for at least attempting to push the envelope.

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.