Starring a.o. George Kiseleff, Ulli Lommel, ...
Directed by Ulli Lommel. Another one of those direct-to-dvd & shot-on-video movies. My first encounter with director Ulli Lommel wasn't too good. I disliked his "The BTK Killer" which I haven't finished to this day. I was surprised to find out Ulli Lommel is around as an actor and director since the early '70s in Germany and who now lives in the USA. I thought he was a guy who's been making movies in recent years but he's the director of the 1980's original of "The Boogeyman" which was remade in recent years. I thought he did that movie from a few years ago (on these dvd boxcovers they keep mentioning "from the director of The Boogeyman") and that these serial killer movies were done before the remake of "The Boogeyman". But apparantly Lommel made various movies that got a theatrical release and with a bigger budget, before and after these serial killer movies, being a.o. "The Green River Killer", "The BTK Killer", "The Zodiac Killer", ... These movies look very cheap, sometimes even unintentionally funny. Sometimes he uses stock footage from his earlier movies and other stock footage (didn't quite like the slaughterhouse stock footage in "The BTK Killer" which made my stomach turn). The guy who plays Ridgway doesn't look or sound like the real Ridgway, a fact that is emphasized by the use of stock footage of the real Ridgway being interrogated by police. The scene in which Ridgway gets angry at a co-worker who calls him Green River Gary is hilarious. Ridgway was a suspect in recent years of the investigation of the Green River killings but wasn't arrested for a long time due to lack of proof and was connected years later when they started using new DNA techniques. His co-workers tease him with being a suspect. "What's my name? What's my name?!" This movie isn't bad but not for people who are used to big budget blockbusters. Most of Lommel's other movies that I've seen weren't bad either. My favourite is "The Zodiac Killer", in which Lommel plays the writer of a book on the Zodiac case and is contacted by a Zodiac killer copycat. As it turns out the writer knows the Zodiac well, véry well!
