Review: Happy Face Killer


David Arquette stars as Keith Jesperson, a man with a lot of sick urges that have long laid dormant, but once the truck driver is rejected first by his fed-up wife and applying for his dream job as a Mountie, he snaps and starts picking up women to rape and kill. Gloria Reuben plays the police investigator tracking the killer down.



I’m always up for a good true crime story, but this 2014 TV movie from cinematographer turned director Rick Bota (the direct-to-DVD “Hellraiser: Hellseeker” and a lot of TV) isn’t anywhere near good. Lousy, tame, and poorly cast this is a real waste of potential in the true-life story. Scripted by Richard Christian Matheson (the infamously bad “Loose Cannons” as well as several episodes of “The A-Team”), there really was potential in the story of a creepy guy lying dormant until opportunity shows itself for him to indulge himself. The problem in execution is that said creepy guy is played by someone who simply cannot act. David Arquette is perfectly fine at being David Arquette in roles where that is advantageous, such as “Scream” and “Beautiful Girls”. In addition to being the absolute wrong size and shape for the role (the real killer was pretty damn huge, apparently), this is the absolute wrong role for David Arquette being David Arquette. When he’s called upon to be creepy and menacing, it’s eye-rolling and amateurish. There’s zero credibility there. Truth be told, the film’s other familiar face, Gloria Reuben doesn’t exactly cover herself in glory, either. I’ve never liked the former “E.R.” actress and here as police detective, I swear she never blinks once. It’s a distractingly stiff performance.



Also hampering the film is its chosen medium. I know it’s a TV movie, but the murders here are predominantly off-screen. It’s only after an hour or so before we actually see Arquette choke someone to death. It makes for a very limp, unsatisfying experience all-round. In fact, the only thing I found even halfway interesting here was when the killer gets upset that someone else owns up to the crimes he himself is committing, whilst he gets pegged for a mere copycat. Otherwise…ugh. No, this won’t do.



Nothing works here, a shame given the real-life case should’ve lent itself to something interesting. However, with two terrible actors at the helm and a story limited by a tame TV movie approach, this thing never comes close to working.



Rating: C-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more