The Killing of America (1982, Sheldon Renan)

It's funny how after seeing pretty much every kind of real-death 'shockumentary' on the market, it took me this long to check out "The Killing of America" - which I will say is, beyond all reasonable doubt, the best of it's kind out there. The whole 'Mondo film' thing really stopped interesting me as I advanced into, I'd say, my late teen years and total desensitization took effect. The thrill that came along with my juvenile obsession of gaining access to videos of authentic documentation of real-life carnage - such as the "Faces of Death", "Traces of Death" and "Faces of Gore" series' - diminished and my tastes advanced to the next 'phase'... Whatever it was. Now, that's not to say I can't enjoy one of these types of flicks on occasion or find them socially pertinent. It's just not a way in which I get my gore-craving 'jollies' in this day and age of the bounteous amounts of 'shock sites' and online craziness that is so easily accessible. Hell, if there's any real reason to watch a 'shockumentary' these days, it's to relive a period BEFORE the existence of the internet and all of the wonderfully gruesome and sleazy content it has to offer.

I guess what makes "The Killing of America" stand out to me, is that it doesn't come across as gratuitous and debauched as many other similar flicks out there that merely exploited genuine misery and 'taboo' acts/rituals under the guise of "cultural study". Here, there's no faked electric chair executions, monkey brain eating, alligator attacks - i.e. "Faces of Death" - and no tedious, 10 minute long autopsy sequences with death metal soundtrack accompaniment. "The Killing of America" covers two decades or so of high profile, as well as lesser known, examples of killing in the U.S. with a much more journalistic approach than your standard Mondo flick. Everything from the Kennedy assassination (including Bobby), Charles Manson, Martin Luther King, Ted Bundy, John Hinkley Jr., Charles Whitman and Jim Jones are covered in just enough detail, but with plenty of actual footage to go along with each event. Yeah, this may seem like totally familiar stuff by today's standards, but again, this was pre-internet and it's pretty fascinating still. Plus, you get some insight into guys like Lawrence Bittaker (aka. The Toolbox Killer), Wayne Henley and an interview with the lumbering, nerdy and oddly likeable Edmund Kemper in prison.

Also featured is the tragic murder of a convenience store clerk caught on camera and a three day long hostage situation involving an extremely pissed off guy who kidnaps the owner of a mortgage company who refused him a loan and the stand-off that lasted 3 days. Also got the disturbing ramblings of James Hoskins who took the employees of a news station hostage in 1980 and claimed he wanted a shootout with the cops before completely buckling and killing himself.

While "The Killing of America" demonstrated a more tasteful and, I guess, moral "wake-up call" on violence motive than many other graphic, real-death compilation mix-tapes that have circulated throughout the years, though this one comes across as more 'legit' and informative. It's excellently paced, has great voice-over narration, plenty of great footage - some of which I'd never seen before - and it didn't feel exploitive. Definitely check out "The Killing of America" if you have the stomach for this kind of stuff and want a little more substance.