Asesinos de los Estados Unidos

Very interesting and entertaining documentary featuring heaps of real footage of shootings and assassinations, etc. The squeamish should definitely avoid, because the footage is extremely graphic, and should definitely not be viewed by those under the age of 18.

Despite having been made back in 1982, this film has not lost any of it's impact...and living in the country where it was filmed, it hits incredibly close to home.

Before you dismiss this as another "Faces of Death" clone, complete with re-enacted scenes, be forewarned. This is real. 100% of the footage came from either TV news departments across the country, or from private collectors! You WILL see newsreel footage of people being shot to death (including one man being shot by police before the opening credits!), and disturbingly graphic descriptions of murders. There is even footage where people leave a courtroom to vomit after hearing a recording made by Lawrence "Pliers" Bittaker during the slow torture death of one of his victims.

Leonard Schrader, the older brother of director Paul Schrader, produced this film for the Japanese film market, where "death films" bring in big money. But instead of an exploitative "shockumentary" as normally expected, this is a detailed examination of how Western Civilization is slowly falling apart.

The assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the attempted assassination of George Wallace, and a number of other people (Charles Whitman, David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, John Wayne Gacey, Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Ed Kemper, Brenda "I Don't Like Mondays" Spencer, etc.) who, in their own twisted logic, saw the need to kill people, and acted upon it; all are reported here in great detail.

The film ends with a report on the murder of John Lennon, and a blunt statement that during the public memorial held in his memory, two people were shot.

No, this isn't a gross-out "video nasty", it's a hard examination of how the USA is in a slow collapse before our very eyes.

Michael Moore must have seen this movie. This is Bowling for Columbine, dark and hopeless early 80s style. No humour here, just a dystopia view of an ugly, violent, dysfunctional America going down in flames, loosely connected through a sprawling narrative, and fueled by amazing archive footage.

Sensitive viewers be warned. There are plenty of ghastly sequences and photographs here. Some, no, lots of completely horrible stuff that will make you cringe.

While Moore aims at amusing us as he hammers away on his message, The Killing of America goes straight for shock value. The narrative seems to exist primarily as an excuse for showing a lot of violent images. The message never goes beyond "Look at all the violence. Something must be wrong with America". While true enough, this is hardly Pulitzer stuff.

But it is not message that makes this movie interesting. It is the fantastic collection of archive footage that the filmmakers have managed to scrape together. With the risk of appearing warped, I must admit that this is truly fascinating stuff. You'll find news footage here of riots, assassinations of political figures, sniper mass murderers etc. that is rarely shown anywhere.

I have long been fascinated by American contemporary history and politics, and in that vein, I find this movie unmissable. The three segments showing the JFK assassination from different angles alone make it worth watching. I have never really doubted that Oswald was the only assassin before, but now...let's just say I'll leave a little room for speculation. Just a tiny little bit.

Those interested in the phenomena of mass or serial killers will also get their fill of material here. A large segment of the film is dedicated to this, including court footage of Ted Bundy and an interview with Edward Kemper. Both seem earily "normal". Isn't that more scary than if they were ranting lunatics? An audio tape, seemingly real, of Jim Jones admonishing his disciples to take their own lives more willingly, without complaining so much, is another complete hairraiser.

While obviously taken out of context and thrown together in order to create a slanted image of what was going on during the 1960s and 1970s, many of the scenes in this movie rightly show us a different America than the one we recognize from mainstream media.

This is not the whole truth. But it is a small part, an evil, shadowy part. The Killing of America desensitizes recent history. And as such, it is essential.

Take the "Happiness is a Warm Gun" two minute shocking segment presented in "Bowling for Columbine" and multiply for almost two hours, then you have this excellent documentary named "The Killing of America". It reminds of what Michael Moore did in his powerful masterpiece, but this film haven't reach the impact of the Oscar winning documentary since it wasn't released in the U.S. back in 1982 and not even now (but it's easy to find on the internet). Leonard Schrader's film touched a deep wound of America and of course this couldn't be released in there, it would be misinterpreted and still can be depending of how one view this documentary. Strangely, this was made for the Japan market, another reason of why this wasn't shown in U.S. not even for home video.

What we have here is a look at some of the most horrendous figures and crimes that ever appeared in U.S. between 1950's and 1980's, most of them captured on camera, broadcasted on TV, followed by an haunting voice over from Chuck Riley. There you'll see the Kennedy's assassination, John Lennon's murder, Jim Jones, Ted Bundy, Charles Whitman, Sirhan Sirhan, Charles Manson, Brenda Spencer and other bigger and minor criminal and tragical events recorded on film that took place in America.

The intelligence of this documentary is to provoke a debate on why there was so much violent crimes in America in all the images presented here without reaching the sensationalism of things like "Faces of Death". It intrigues its viewers by exploring a dark past of one the most powerful countries of the world showing a unflattering and sad side of it. It gives us numbers, facts, informations and impressive things to make its audience think about possible reasons behind this enormous stream of crimes and violence.

The images are haunting and quite depressive, but it should never be viewed as an attack to a country's past, it's just a critical piece that exposes its great arguments over a current critical situation of that period. It could happen at any place, and it happens indeed. I'm hoping to find such a brutal and honest film like this concerning the violent facts and images of my country, someday in a future until we have someone with the guts like the creators of this powerful media. 10/10

Of course that if we watch it after "Bowling for Columbine", perhaps it will mean not much for you, but it definitely sets a horrible, sad and real background to all the violence phenomena that the USA has been living after 1963, and after a long journey through history, it ends up in the contemporary times of when the movie was made: 1982. The documentary is explicit, is depressive, sad, but still, very crude and accurate, and studying the theme from different points of view: anthropological, sociological, historical, etc. If you are interested in understanding how USA became so chaotic and yet the world potency, I think this movie is a must.