Follow up on
yesterday's film clip (a few words about the movie with Eliza Dushku topless):
The Alphabet Killer
"Based on a true story"
I don't know if the phrase "based on a true story" is the biggest bullshit
line in the English language because it would have to compete with some
powerhouse contenders like "I'll call you," "I won't come in your mouth," and
"The check's in the mail." I do suspect that it is the most frequently used
bullshit line in movie advertisements. Why? Because it works. Follow the
money. If the original version of "The Amityville Horror" had been released as
a straight horror film with no publicity campaign to link the film to real
events, it would have achieved no success at the box office. It basically had
nothing going for it except the widely accepted belief that all the
supernatural events portrayed on film really happened. That belief spurred
enough curiosity that people had to see those things and talk about them.
That's just one example, but the concept is universal. If you can convince
people that they are watching impossible or unusual events that really
happened, your film is going to do far better.
The Alphabet Killer is based on a series of murders that occurred in
Rochester, New York in the 1970s. The three victims were all pre-pubescent
girls from poor Catholic families. All three had problems in school. All of
them had matching first and last initials, and all of their bodies were found
in a town with that same initial: Carmen Colon in Churchville, Wanda Walkowicz
in Webster, Michelle Maenza in Macedon. There was a fourth victim normally
associated with the case because her name was Michelle McMurray, but the
fourth murder did not really fit the pattern. She was only seven years old,
much younger than the others, and her body was found in Rochester, not in an
"M" town like nearby Macedon or Mendon. After 30-odd years, the Rochester
police have recently come to believe that they have solved the fourth murder,
the one that did not fit the pattern. The other three remain unsolved, and
there is nothing at this time to link the McMurray suspect to the other three
slayings.
This film is based on the case in this respect: the details of the murders
are identical. They all involved girls with matching initials, and they all
took place in the Rochester area. Those are the only similarities between the
real events and the film, and they are not integral to the drama because the
murders basically occur before the film begins or off-camera. The film is
about the police investigation, not the murders, and it bears absolutely no
resemblance to the real investigation. It is a completely fictional story
"based on a true story." Not only is it fictional, but it is a complete
stretch, even for those people with the most flexible sense of credulity.
The murders are being investigated by a policewomen with mental problems:
delusions, visions, hallucinations, obsessions - you name it. She is
exceptionally gifted at police work for some of the same reasons that make her
mentally unstable. First, she sees things that other people cannot. Second,
she becomes so obsessed with unanswered questions that she can't rest until
she can find a plausible solution. This brilliant combination of insight and
determination makes her brilliant, but unstable, and the instability makes her
useless because her fellow officers can never tell whether her ideas about a
case are different from theirs because she's being brainy, or because she's
being loony. Her very existence defines the cliché about a fine line between genius
and insanity.
Complete spoilers ahead:
The movie holds together for about 80 minutes thanks to a convincing lead
performance by Eliza Dushku and just enough intrigue generated by the
confusion between her delusions and her conclusions. (Like her fellow
officers, we don't know if she's being insightful or paranoid.) Then it all
falls apart with a truly off-the-wall solution. (Remember the real-life crimes
are still unsolved today, 35 years after the fact.) Wouldn't you know it, but
it turns out the way these things always do in films. When the female
detective is being pursued by both police and medical authorities because of
her emotional and dangerously violent outbursts, she has only one confidante
she can rely on, a lonely paraplegic she met in the loony bin. She goes to his
house because nobody can really trace her to him, so she can theoretically
hide out there forever.
Only one tiny problem. He's the killer!
Yup, that's right. Of all the hundreds of thousands of people in the
Rochester area, it just so happens that her one and only friend, who has not
previously been connected to the crimes in any way, is the killer. The script
points get even worse. What could be worse than that? Well, I'll tell you. The
crimes were committed by a powerful man with the full use of his legs, and the
officer's friend is in a wheelchair. How could that be? Easy. He's faking the
condition. He's been using a fake wheelchair for years. At the critical moment
when she figures it out, he leaps from the wheelchair to overpower her!
Well, you have to admit it was a surprise ending. The illogical is always
surprising.
There was one line in there that was absolutely hilarious, although I'm not
sure it was meant to be. After all, this is a grim story about a serial
rapist/murderer of young girls, so there's not
a lot of room for levity. But there is a scene just before the guy leaps from
his wheelchair when the detective finds evidence that the paraplegic knew all
three victims. She asks, "Why didn't you tell me you knew all of the victims?"
He replies with something like, "Well, I guess because you would then have
known ... (dramatic pause) ... that I'M THE KILLER." (Leaps from wheelchair.)
I swear it was really an interesting movie before the script tried to solve
the unsolved murders, but that crazy stuff just blew away any chance it had to
maintain some credibility. And it was especially irritating to see all that
nonsense because this film is "based on a true story," and many details are
identical to the real story, so we're assuming that everything must be real
... right?
Not so much.
The denouement did have one good idea, in fact very good, but it
got stepped on by the dramatic wheelchair leap. The crazy copfirst met the crazy
killer in the loony bin after the first murder. He really liked her and saw
her as a kindred soul. They bonded. He listened to her theory about the
alphabet connection. Turns out she was wrong. It was one of her delusions
rather than one of her insights. He had never given any thought to the fact that
the first victim had the same first and last initials, and he had absolutely no
idea that he had dumped her body in an area considered part of Churchville.
But he liked the female detective and felt bad that everyone else thought her
alphabet theory was crazy, so he resolved to make it sane - by killing all of his future victims
according to her theory, thus making it obviously correct! In essence, if not for the detective's crackpot theory, those other two girls
would still be alive.
Oops.
Interesting idea. It's far-fetched and completely unrelated to the real
case upon which the film is putatively based, but genuinely interesting and
thought-provoking.
One last nitpick. I'm from Rochester. Rochesterians speak with a
distinctive accent, and not one person in the cast sounded like a real
Rochesterian. Cary Elwes, bless his English heart, tried to sound like a New
Yorker, but nobody thought to tell the lad that people in Rochester, New York
sound nothing like people from New York City. (Rochesterians actually sound
most similar to people from Minneapolis. The most famous person with a genuine
Rochester accent is Robert Forster.)
Overall, I got the impression that it was a so-so film with a terrific one
lurking within, unable to escape.
Film clip in yesterday's edition