Jakealope

This is like a low budget Kiwi version of Dexter, but in Dexter you could root for Dexter because he ws killing off sick serial killer scum like our erstwhile villain main character Joe Middleton. The first person thought narration is even more than in Dexter. This creep takes joy in killing random women who did him no harm. So I feel sort of guilty enjoying this based on the sexual sadism angle. But it has a charm and it also paired him with a female version of him Melissa Flowers who at first literally busted his ball with pliers. Then add Joe's awful mom Evelyn and a decent Christian woman who worked as a maintenance man in the same ChristChurch Police Station as our lead psycho. But instead of being a CSI wonk like Dexter, he is a lowly janitor. But like Dexter, he keeps ahead of the cops due to eavesdropping and snooping around. Like I said befoe, it seems immoral to enjoy a show so amoral and vile like this but it has a droll sense of humor and some interesting characters and plot twists too.

Copycat seemed to epitomize all that was wrong with big budget Hollywood Serial Killer Thrillers, down to the super savvy almost supernatural killers who only mess up in the end when its time to die. It had sort of a post modern feel of it with using an actual professional profiler psychologist as the center of the movie, Helen Hudson by Sigourney Weaver, who was driven to agoraphobia by a vicious attack by a now jailed super serial killer played by Harry Connick Jr. As Daryll Lee Cullum. The latter plays a rednecky version of Hannibal Lecter, giving out heroes all sorts of advice from his death row prison cell along with his band of deviant killers including the current one on the loose. Okay it was shot full of cliches but it was still good thanks to good old Sigourney and Holley too, who plays the lead inspector Monahan of the SFPD. They even waste the two male detective including the then cute Dermot Mulroney as Ruben Goetz, leaving the two intrepid females to save the day.

The movie is called Copycat because the titular serial killer faithfully copies other far more notorious serial killers like Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy, Ramirez and Buono/Bianchi.

The only two plot points I didn't like was the way they did in Ruben Goetz in a pointless shoot out in the police station with some Chinese suspect whom they were freeing. Then for all her legitimate fear our profiler had of being attacked, you'd think she would of had some inside latches and drawbars on her doors, another way to communicate by radio etc, an alarm system and less windows in her spacious flat. Oh yeah, she should have been armed too. This might have prevented our demonic serial killer from entering her flat at will.

Yes, this is the most horrific and banal serial killer cliche ridden movie of all time. I had watched maybe 2 Luther episodes in my life and while didn't gush over them, I liked the episodes at least. This was total fantasist guff that threw in every bad super serial killer trope in. The serial killer was super rich and always stayed 2 moves ahead of everyone else. Similar to the "Following" he had a legion of allies that he recruited mainly off the internet, but by his research center that ferreted out secrets on all sorts of people he could use to blackmail them into doing anything. Like jumping to their deaths on cue from buildings around Piccadilly Circus to create what, more chaos. Actually the actor tasked with this unpleasant role was Anthony Serkis, aka Gollum. He did an passable job, not over-doing the stupid role too much. There was one only-in-movie scene where the master killer lures all the victims' families together is a big mansion where all the dead bodies are hanging in the ballroom around a big chandelier. Then the room is set on fire when steams of kerosene started flowing on the fire then got set on fire with the families milling around under the dead bodies. Then either the serial killer or one of his minion starts waltzing in the backyard wearing a black hooded robe and some cheezy light-up mask staring in the now fiery ballroom. And what do the victims' families do? They don't even run as fire engulfs the room yet after it's all over none of them seemed to die or burn.

This movie reminded me a "Penny Dreadful" an English horror series which started great but devolved into ever cheezy 19th century horror trope. Both times I suffered through the mess thinking, "It's an English production, they can't go that low, predictable and stupid." But they did.

There is also the modern racial aspect, the white guys are all sissies or evil doers, except for Luther's old retired boss. Luther's counterpart on the force after he is imprisoned is a black female DCI of course, and while she was compromised by the black-mailing master serial killer who then deciders to kidnap her obnoxious daughter. Of course there is no dad around in that family to help out.

Then there is one especially egregious deux ex machina scene where Luther is busy drowning on the bottom of this frozen lake in a Land Rover. Then some helos fly into the rescue and they just know where to drop the frogmen through a hole in the ice to rescue our intrepid hero.