TV Review: Mindhunter (2017)

"David Fincher strikes again."

If any guy can make a disturbing, slow-burn of a story like this one come to life in the proper way, It's David Fincher. With Se7en and Zodiac, Fincher gave us two of the best movies about Serial Killers ever made, and as co-producer and co-director on Mindhunter, he's given us another disturbing gem to savor.

It's kind of like watching a 10-episode run of Zodiac.

Based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas , Mindhunter tells the story of real FBI agents John E. Douglas and Robert K. Ressler, who essentially created criminal profiling in the 70's, which has since become an invaluable tool used to catch killers, especially those of the serial variety. The two agents, called Holden Ford and Bill Tench in the show, travel across the country to interview killers like Edmund Kemper, Richard Speck, and Jerry Brudos, in an effort to gain insight into their mindsets, so that they can catch other killers before their body counts mount.

Sound familiar? Well John E. Douglas was who the character of Jack Crawford of Silence of the Lambs was based on, as well as Will Graham, and the profilers on Criminal Minds.

LIKE WILL GRAHAM GOING TO VISIT DR. LECTER.

The show is a new, fresh spin on the Police procedural, showcasing the FBI agents and their personal lives as much as it does the criminals and their heinous crimes. We see Holden go from an odd but likable guy, who slowly loses his shit as he delves deeper into the minds of the killers. His partner, Bill, is an old school guy who is hesitant to go down the path that Holden is making, as his home life is less than ideal, and weighs on him heavily.

And the killers, well they're terrifying to behold, in a subtle, all-too-creepy way, especially Ed Kemper, who is played brilliantly by Cameron Britton; if his matter-of-fact, emotionless description of his crimes doesn't give you chills, I don't know what will.

MOTHER'S, PLEASE LOVE YOUR SONS, OR THEY'LL GROW UP TO BE THIS GUY.

Surprisingly, for a show with such a grisly plot, there's very little graphic violence in Mindhunter. It's a procedural in which cases-of-the-week are worked, but the Horror of it shines through in the interviews with the killers, not in watching them work.

I have to imagine that in Season 2, we'll get more about BTK (the guy in the cold opens of every episode), and let us not forget that Serial Killers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, and Henry Lee Lucas were at work in the late 70's/early 80's, so there will be no shortage of disturbing ground to cover.

HOLT McCALLANY IS WAY UNDERRATED.

Mindhunter is an addicting piece of drama, anchored by top-notch directing, cinematography, and excellent work by everyone in the cast. David Fincher is the perfect storyteller to tackle the world of Serial Killers, and that's evidenced by the fact that he's able to do so with little to no bloodshed, and it's not even an issue.

Binge this show this Halloween Season. You won't regret it.

A

Mindhunter is streaming on Netflix now.

Anna Torv and Hannah Gross are in this.

New on Blu-ray Today: The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

*We watched this movie way back in 2009, and found it to be a decent Found Footage flick. In the years since, we've seen it a few more times, and it's grown to be one of our favorites of the genre.

Thanks to Scream Factory, it's FINALLY hit Blu-ray and can be seen by Horror fans everywhere, and let me tell you that if you like gritty, realistic Horror flicks that make you feel dirty for watching them, then this is one not to miss. 

Check out our original review below, updated for the passage of time.






Sub-Genre- Serial Killer, Found Footage.
Cast Members of Note- Bobbi Sue Luther, and Stacy Chbosky.
Directed by- John Erick Dowdle, who would go on to helm films like Devil, Quarantine, and As Above, So Below.

A bunch of inept Cops and "experts" participate in a Documentary about the worst Serial Killer the world has ever known... Ed! At least they think that's his name, though they're so inept that they don't have so much as one clue about him, even after he leaves them hundreds of videotapes of his crimes. Could they not run the make of his car? Was there seriously not one print or molecule of DNA in his house, or at any of the crime scenes?

1-800-GOOD-LUCK-FINDING-HER.

Inept Police Work aside, Ed sure knows how to have fun; making whores pop balloons while dressed in bikinis, raping random kids and women, terrifying innocent Girl Scouts, taking advantage of the kindness of strangers... and he tapes it all for posterity's sake. And for the sake of love, apparently, which is something he desperately wants to find.

Hey Ed, this is not was love is.

Interviews, footage, interviews, footage, interviews, footage... I won't spoil the ending for you here, because it's so shocking, but let's just say that they never catch him. *It's Found Footage, no one ever gets caught.

...but plenty of people die!

Before even having seen this one, I loved the premise; Police find hundreds of video tapes belonging to a prolific local Serial Killer, each of them documenting his crimes in graphic detail. Now having actually seen it, this movie contains some absolutely disturbing scenarios and imagery, courtesy of said tapes, and if you can lose yourself in the Found Footage aspect of things, then you're in for a chilling ride.

Chloroform: The Stranger Picker Upper.

The acting in this was 50/50; some of it was decent and believable, and felt Documentary-like, but most of the rest of it was poor to bad, and even seemed ad-libbed at times. Then again, the script was pretty poor in places too; a good example of this is when a frantic mother calls 911 to say she thinks someone took her 8-year-old daughter, the 911 operator responds with "Like who?" in an uncaring, dismissive voice. Sub-par acting along with a script that needed to be a bit tighter, keeps this one from being the true Modern-day Classic that it could have been.

Overall though, this was a disturbing and creepy movie, that most people will find completely effective.

This looks like our porn collection.

Did the filmmakers think that obscuring the look of the killer's videos made them look more real? The footage was at times so horribly distorted, that we wondered if Ed had magnets in his pockets or something. I've never seen a worse camcorder in my life.

Is he adjusting the tracking?

Do you have to mess with the kids, Mr. Creepy Rape-Kill guy? I mean, all the Girl Scouts want to do is to sell their cookies, and make enough money for their Troop to go to camp "I'll be a whore someday," not be tortured and killed in terrible ways by you. You sir, are disturbing.

"Thin Mints please! Also, 2 boxes of Tagalongs. Also, I'm going to make you pass away with a knife."

There's not much gore in this one, but we do get a little bit of blood here and there. This movie is really more about disturbing visuals, rather than graphic violence, which is fine with us.

Like that right there? We get the point.

Dead hooker boobs.

"Pop it!" or "To be honest, I don't think either of us are gonna want you alive for the things I'm going to do to you."

Avoid nice guys with video cameras. Also, BDSM is scary.

Why did they not market and sell these masks? We'd buy one.

I have a feeling people will either love The Poughkeepsie Tapes, or downright hate it. Some things in this movie really, really worked well, while others fell a bit flat. I say see it; like The Blair Witch Project, it's an interesting Found Footage effort at the very least, and an awesomely disturbing movie at the most. That all depends on if the premise sucks you in or not though.

B+

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is finally available on Blu-ray now.

Bobby Sue Luther is in this.

Screener Review: The Ice Cream Truck (2017)

"That poster is awesome, but it's a bit misleading..."

*Thanks to the folks over at October Coast PR for the screener.

The poster for The Ice Cream Truck is all kinds of old school cool. Problem is, the movie itself doesn't deliver anywhere near the slasher-y goodness that the poster promises.

There's no way that I can discuss this movie without spoiling the whole thing, so in the sections below, I'm going to talk about the ending, and what it meant for the movie in general.

If you don't want the movie to be spoiled for you, forget our review and just check it out when you can.

You've been warned.

Mary and her family are moving back to her suburban hometown because they want the simple life. While fetching her morning paper, Mary notices a creepy ice cream truck driver waving at her from the street. Maybe he's delivering some "cool treats" to the lonely housewives of the neighborhood, or maybe he's plotting murder.

WHAT IS HIS END GAME?

Then, some shady looking guy shows up to deliver her furniture, and he gives her the once-over, noticing her wet boob, and walking in on her while she's changing. Maybe he's there to deliver her furniture, or maybe he's planning on giving her a good snuggle struggle instead.

A BUDDING ROMANCE?

The ice cream man starts killing off people in the neighborhood, Mary develops an inappropriate relationship with a local teenage boy, and we're not sure where the delivery guy went, because we were sure that he was going to stick around for some romance.

A suburban nightmare ensues.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT HE MISSED THE CONE, AND GOT THE STRAWBERRY SYRUP ALL OVER HIS SHIRT INSTEAD. SLOPPY WORK.

Right off the bat, Megan Freels' sophomore effort felt like an old school slasher flick to us with the way that the credits crawled up the screen to that sharp synth score, and we were sucked in. Deanna Russo made for a likable lead, and Emil Johnsen was suitably creepy as the ice cream truck driver. Jeff Daniel Phillips stole the show as the rapey furniture delivery guy. It was subtly amusing at times, and the kill scenes were decent.

But...

The main issue with the movie is that it plays out as a Horror flick, a commentary on suburban life, and a psychological drama all at once, and never really weaves those aspects together to make it feel coherent. It's well-made for a smaller Indie flick, and it's surely fun enough at times, but it tries to do too many things at once, and thus ends up being a bit of a muddled mess.

If you want to make a Horror flick, make a Horror flick. You can add all the subtext you want about how shady and annoying the suburbs are, and how lonely it can be for a woman to be thrust into a new situation alone, but dammit, deliver on the tension and blood-letting. If not, then drop the Horror bits and just make it a pure drama.

It's really the ending that killed it for me. I know that the movie is supposed to be a takedown of suburban life in general, along with being a profile of a woman and her psychological state, but the whole "it was all in her head" thing is the biggest cop-out there is, and aside from Haute Tension, it's annoying as hell to see a plot device like that negate an entire movie.

Had they played it straight-forward Horror-wise, and kept the subtext that fueled the film to a minimum, it would have been much better for it.

SHE OBVIOUSLY ISN'T A FAN OF BUTTER BRICKLE.

We get some ice cream scooper and knife violence, and some bloody moments throughout.

SHE SHOULD HAVE GONE WITH VANILLA.

There's a sex scene, but it's nothing overtly graphic.

NOT PROVOCATIVE ENOUGH.

The Ice Cream Truck isn't a bad movie, and in fact it's a rather enjoyable one for the most part, but it's also one that doesn't really feel like it knows what it wants to be... or maybe they shouldn't have sold it to us like it's a Horror movie, when it's clearly just the daydream of a bored suburban housewife.

Not bad, but frustrating.

C

The Ice Cream Truck hits limited theaters and VOD on August 18th.

I don't know how this is the first time we're seeing Deanna Russo in anything, but good lord does she ever have our attention now.