| "Copycat"
DVD
Hey, Ulli Lommel...got
a special message for you this week. Assuming you read these,
which isn't likely given that you're still pumping out your special
brand of direct to video drivel to an unsuspecting video store
audiences instead of slinking off into the night like the crime
against video store patrons you are. Anyway, message: If you want
to keep doing lousy movies about serial killers, you may well
want to grab a copy of Copycat, because even though it's not that
great, it's still light years ahead of your spectacular sludge
piles.
Copycat is all about
a killer who's been busy studying up on all the greats--Ramirez,
Dahmer, Gein--and putting their methods to work in his own serial
killing endeavors. Naturally, a whole lot of killings draw both
police and journalists like flies, and thus the killer finds himself
tailed by journalist Laura Nelson, whose mother was the victim
of a serial killer herself. Laura finds out more about the great
serial killers than she ever wanted to, but her exposure to these
monsters gives her fresh insight to chase this newest one down.
And the closer she gets to him, the closer he gets to her.
Sure, Copycat is nothing
great. Of course, we get plenty of footage of the serial killers
in their elements, stalking victims outside gay bars, killing
people while delivering milk, so on and so forth. But these elements
are strung together in a sufficiently rapid fashion that it's
difficult to get bored, because by the time you're actually ready
to start yawning angrily at the screen for wasting so much time,
they've moved on to the next thing. This prevents you from ever
working up sufficient steam to get bored or pop the disk out,
so in a sense, Copycat has achieved some minor manner of success.
Also, by adding the
stalk-the-journalist subplot, we've actually managed to compress
several short films into one significant whole, and that's a fair
upshot. Of course, the whole thing is bland and mediocre at best,
so the upshot can really only be fair.
The ending is actually
fairly satisfying, and it probably won't surprise anyone to know
that that serial killer is going to be dead by the end of this.
Special features include
audio options, Spanish subtitles, and trailers for "The Morgue",
"Artifacts", "Restraint", "Dead and Gone",
and "Unemployed".
All in all, "Copycat"
may never win awards for being a great movie, or even a great
serial killer movie, but it will at least manage not to enrage
anybody or waste anyone's time. So it's a fair rental if nothing
else you want happens to be around, or you're just really into
serial killers.
Copycat
**
DVD
Directed by Andy Hurst
Written by Ellis Walker
Starring Chloe Snyder, Mark Hengst, Andreas Beckett
Produced by Ralph E. Portillo, Jamie Elliott
R
2008
86 mins
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