Thursday, November 12, 2015

The Turnpike Killer (2009)

"The Turnpike Killer" started off somewhat promising, but unfortunately succumbed to a few pitfalls around the halfway mark. These particular problems are all too common in these types of 'shoestring' budget serial killer/slasher flicks, I've found.

A bulky serial killer - guided by the voices in his head - is stalking, collecting and butchering women around New Jersey. Of course, they're chicks he deems "whores" and "impure" and all that jazz...

For the first few scenes, the violence and gore is decent enough. The guy who plays the killer is passable, though it's clear that not much personality was written into his character so his 'insanity' isn't all that elucidated. They also provide a little full frontal nudity amidst the terrified, bloody-titted female victims, which is obviously a MUST in MY book. Thing is, the movie starts slowing down about midway through when they start in with the detectives investigating the case and tack on a completely lame-ass ending involving the occult. As far as I'm concerned, the best 'move' with flicks like this is to keep it on track and focus on the killer and his exploits. When you cast your non-actor buddies as detectives in your micro-budget slasher flick, it usually knocks your movie down another notch on the 'amateur scale'. Films like Bill Lustig's "Maniac", John McNaughton's "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and Gerald Kargl's "Angst" new well enough to keep that shit out of there and focus on maintaining an effective 'flow', centering around the killer and his depravity. Don't get carried away with trying to write in CSI dialog in your B-movie.

Anyways... "The Turnpike Killer" isn't the worst thing I've seen. It just lost it's footing midway and tried getting 'clever' with nonsensical shit. Check out any of the films mentioned above instead.

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