Green River Killer

My wife and I always seem to be suckered in by packaging of an unpopular title. From it's cover Green River Killer looked somewhat interesting having been based on a true story about a real serial killer. The moment we saw the first scene that it was on video and not film, the lead actor's (if you can call him an actor at all) stumbling through his lines to the awful cinematography and boxy audio we knew it was a terrible stinker and realized the watch ahead would be painful and excruciating. There were flashes of scenes that looked like they spliced from another awful film, probably one that was too bad to complete so they used the bits for whatever effects they were going after. You even could hear that the gun was plastic! If there's any good in the movie it was some actual police confession footage of the real killer, even he was a better actor than the guy they got as the lead. Someone should have just used the real killer's confession video, hired Bill Kurtis and let A&E or Discovery make a decent documentary instead. I should have checked IMDb first because all of its reviews from other victims (watchers) were dead on accurate.

I have to hand it to its marketing and artwork, however I suppose that's where the entire budget was spent on and the best part of the movie but not worth the four-dollars wasted. I can't say if I've seen worse movies than this, some were at least equal, like comparing a skunk's smell to a dead fish. Even those by Ed Wood or others from B movie directors at least provided laughter, this was too bad to be funny. A film as bad as this deserves an award, its awfulness just can't go unnoticed.

Since the actual Green river killings occurred around my area and in the neighboring state of Washington, I was interested in the real murder cases. I mean, nearly fifty female victims have been counted, some of them never identified, and the murderer, Gary Ridgeway, was one sick man. So, naturally, I thought I'd rent "Green River Killer" when I saw it at a local video store. The DVD packaging looked rather professional, so I decided to give the film a chance. Boy, I'm so very sorry that I even wasted the three dollars.

Where do I even begin with how completely horrible this film is? It's supposed to be a semi-biography on Gary Ridgeway and the murders he committed, but it's so horrible constructed that I could hardly bare to watch it. First of all, the story is a complete and utter mess. It makes absolutely no sense and is extremely confusing. Second, the acting. Oh, the acting. It was horrible amateur, and extremely unbelievable. Third, the direction and cinematography. This film had to have been shot on an old VHS camcorder, or at least that's how the quality looks. The camera angles were terrible and the film just looked bad. Really, really bad. I also had the viewing pleasure of Ulli Lommel's other film "Black Dahlia", which was almost as bad as this. I would have reviewed that film also, but for some reason IMDb doesn't have a listing for it yet (hm... I wonder why?).

Lommel seems to have a history of directing true-crime films, but the problem is that they are all so horrible. This guy really needs to give up on his film career, because his movies are an insult to the film industry. Please, no more of these cheapo, straight-to-video true crime films. If I could give it a zero, I would. Overall, this film is purely and simply pathetic. Avoid at all costs, and never rent a film from this director, because it's guaranteed to be bad. 1/10.

This movie was worse than a porn dialogue/story line. I didn't know that was possible, but amazingly it succeeded with flying colors in sucking ass. The lighting/acting/camera work/plot/dialogue were terrible. We honestly decided to watch the director's commentary because we couldn't possibly see them saying nice things about their own movie. Of all of this, though, the "special features" was flippin' hilarious - an "interactive menu" and optional subtitles! YAY! ... Wait. Doesn't ever movie come with that?? I could go on, but this movie doesn't deserve any more of my time. And this is all said from the point of view of an avid serial killer nut, and I love GOOD serial killer movies. This just wasn't one of them - please, for the love of everything holy, throw this movie in the trash and BURN it.

This is the lamest piece of crap I've ever seen. It sounded pretty good and having heard of this serial killer, thought maybe it was worth watching. First clue was the total unknown actors, directors and filmmakers doing this film. I sat through the whole painful experience and left thinking WTF? Any accuracy is out the window. Ridgeway was not even suspected until fiber strands were found on some of the victims and under their nails leading them to Ridgeways 1980s Corvette which he conveniently sold several years prior. There was no proof that he took any of the victims to his home and he freely admits that he had sex with most if not all of them in his car, in remote areas, or at cheap motels. The worst part of this film is the audio overlay with the visceral video images of autopsy's being preformed in the background. What did this have to do with the story? If I wanted to watch autopsy films I'd have rented Faces of Death or some other such garbage thats out there.

I was expecting a semi documentary style film talking about Ridgeway, his motives if any, and how he did what he did for so long. Over his 20+ years of killing, he changed jobs and victim pickup spots several times and there was no discernible pattern nor did he fit the serial killer profile. This was never mentioned in this stupid film. It appears that the student film maker, its that bad, had such a small budget that he got the local exotic strippers to play the part of the victims so that the viewer can have some gratuitous nudity, interspersed with morgue films, some wacked out cuts to some guy Ridgeway claims started him on his career and anything else they wanted to shove on screen to make this film.

It plain out sucks. Don't waste your time or money on this real winner of a loser. Go to the library and get the real documentary if you want to know about this guy, this film could take lessons from that and so could the director, producer, creator and actors, all of whom are terrible at what they do. My advice to them is don't quit your day job.

The director Ulli Lommel studied under the great Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but it has become increasingly apparent that none of Fassbinder's magnificent edge and insight has rubbed off on Lommel. With no true sense of the outrageous and satirical elements that made Fassbinder's melodramas so provoking, Lommel is nothing more than a man who endeavors to be controversial simply for the sake of controversiality.

This was just a horribly directed and told story, I'm pretty sure the history you would get say on A&E would be much better than the stuff Ulli is shoveling here. Please, don't waste your time on this film....