Another film that can be added to the pile of ‘Movies that Wish they were “Maniac” but arnt.’ “Video Murders” is a pretty by the numbers little slasher flick in which a sociopathic serial killer stalks sex workers and strangles them to death on camera for his own diabolical requirements.

And thats about as in depth as it gets. the script is your bog standard ‘Killer goes out killing, cops are 1 step behind until they arnt’ type fodder. Theres a slightly decent upturn towards the end as our killer forms something of a bond with his final victim. But its all too little too late and honestly, by the halfway point I was long into clock watching.

There just isnt a whole lot here, the titular ‘video murders’ are WAY too few and far between. and while the film could have absolutley been improved with some more SOV sequences. a fuzzy video themed intro and outro is about as involved as it gets in the video scene.

The characters are all kind of middle of the road, the killer isnt particualrly interesting and the script doesnt really go into much depth around who these people are or why we should care about them, in the 3rd act the killer is given THE most generic motive a slasher film can really offer…and thats about as far as it goes.

The direction is pretty fine enough, I didnt notice anything TOO agregious barring maybe 1 or 2 instances where it looks like the film ran out literally on the cut mark leading to a few white flashes here and there. the sound quality in places is a little ropey (probably due to poor mic placement on set) but hey. This thing does about the best it can visually (hence the star rating)

The cine is quite impressive in terms of it’s sequence building. Shots are crisp, clean and theres enough B Roll to ensure that sequences float along nicely. However; theres little in the way of experimentation and the B-roll that is present sometimes feels a little thrown together.

It also has to be said that the pacing in this film is dire. theres a chase scene towards the end of the film that goes on for WAY too long, and sequences of our killer trying to find women in bars are frankly painful and lack any kind of solid focus. it’s a real task to sit through to me.

The soundtracks cheap, but interesting as we get low budget synth scoring for most of the movie, but it rearranges classical compositions quite well and it has a somewhat demented quality that I think suits the film nicely.

Throw in a cast who really fail to land any kind of impression, barring our killer who in the closing minutes gives a hamtastic finale. and what your left with is a very generic slasher film, thats quite impressive given its budget and resources. But is just too bland for me to really truely love it. It’s not one I could recommend. If you like ‘Maniac’ as a movie, you’ll probably get on with this one fine enough, but it just smacks of ‘imitation’ and really feels like it isnt certain of standing on its own. It’ll be a while before I come back to this one.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/video-murders/