Black Dahlia

"Black Dahlia" is a cheap, horribly-constructed straight-to-video (and shot-on-video) film that was obviously released soon after De Palma's "The Black Dahlia" hit theaters in hopes of cashing in on the basic premise. This atrocious film follows a copycat killer in the Los Angeles area who is murdering innocent people after asking them in for acting auditions, their bodies found dismembered across the city. The murders are supposed to be modeled after the real-life murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short in the late 1940s, but have very little in common with her murder at all. Who is this mimicking killer? Who knows? Who cares? I know that I didn't, and anyone who rents this film won't either.

Just as the rest of Lommel's films are, this movie is bad. Like, really bad. For one, the plot is just ridiculous. A copycat killer of a real unsolved murder? Come on. Then, there's the acting. It's worse than a B-movie extravaganza - the performances were completely laughable. And the cinematography is horrible - like the rest of Lommel's movies, this was also shot on video, so the quality looks extremely cheap, and the special effects were really bad. Granted, some films can succeed with such problems, but this film fails on all levels, because the plot is boring to begin with and was so ridiculous.

There are even some laughable black & white flashback sequences to the 1940s Hollywood featuring an actress playing the Elizabeth Short character, which are beyond cheesy. Among the flashbacks is a scene featuring the discovery of Short's body, which shows two investigators kneeling over a body that is lying under a tree in front of a brick building. For those familiar with the real case, you will easily know that Elizabeth Short's body was found in a vacant, grassy lot - not under a small tree next to a downtown building. Looks like the filmmakers needed to study a little more into the real crime. This, among other things, just adds to the overall cheap quality that is this movie. I think that more time was spent creating the cover artwork for the DVD (which was actually not bad looking) than there was on the film itself, so don't let that fool you.

Like "Green River Killer" (and the rest of the 'true-crime' based films that this filmmaker chooses to direct), "Black Dahlia" is a horrible movie that lacks any qualities that could make it seem remotely appealing. I can't stress this enough, but do not rent films with the name "Ulli Lommel" branded on them. Rather than seeing this piece of garbage, see the De Palma film, which, while it is semi-fictional, at least focuses on the real case and the murder. If I could, I'd give it a zero out of ten. 1/10.

I didn't even get past the credits when I began to have my doubts. Then it got worse. This is basically bottom of the barrel no-budget B-movie. The acting is terrible, and the script is enough to make you cry. Don't bother renting or watching it. This film makes Italian giallo films look professional and slick. The gore is obviously fake, and you begin to wonder about three minutes in whether the director cast his family in it to keep them happy. I suspect he also borrowed their cars for the film. The childish sing-song and the inclusion of "666" in the Black Dahlia mix was cheap too. Nothing about this film looks professional or particularly well thought out. It is cheapness immortalized on celluloid.

This is the worst "movie" ever made. Of course, calling it a movie is actually exaggerating its merits. No plot. No acting. No nothing. Two guys are silent for at least 45 minutes. One woman should have been. Sorry, but repeating "F___ you bitch!!!" fifty times does not constitute dialogue. Saying it with the same intonation fifty times makes you the anti-actress. Even the same gore was repeated over and over and over. (The "writer" couldn't come up with even a variation?)

Bottom line is there was nothing that you would define as a movie except that the videotape was transferred to DVD and sold in stores. Everyone involved should stay a long way from the business. You have not one iota of talent.

I believe that this is the worst movie I've ever seen.... and I sat through "Atomic Train". At least that has Mena Suvari in it, so I can watch it with the sound off. "Black Dahlia" had not a single virtue. No humor. No plot. No acting. No Irony. There's not a single interesting, entertaining or amusing thing about this movie. I wanted really badly to walk out, but my movie mate drove and insisted on staying. I wanted to stay in the theater watching this schlock only slightly more than I wanted to risk hypothermia. It was a tough choice; watch "Black Dahlia" or die. Death would have been only slightly worse. This movie just plain sucked. It wasn't even interesting by accident. 'Nuff said. This movie just sucked. Addendum: Okay, some of the the music was good.

It's pretty obvious that Lionsgate only released Ulli Lommel's "Black Dahlia" so that they could cash in on Brian De Palma's "The Black Dahlia" (much like other recent sound alike ripoffs "War of the Planets", "When a Killer Calls", and "Flight 93"). Like many of those, this hit DVD before the big movie it imitates in the preemptive rip-off tradition started by Roger Corman. In short, people are supposed to see this DVD on the shelf and mistake it for the De Palma movie. Working at a video store I have encountered the intentional confusion these ripoffs create time and time again.

Anyway, let's talk about the movie already. Rather than re-telling the story of the actual Black Dahlia murder there is simply a brief prologue about it complete with a black and white filter and fake film grain over what is obviously low grade video footage. Then the movie drops us in LA of the 21st century (now) where two plain clothes cops make a drug bust. These are supposed to be our heroes. Then we meet the Satan worshiping killers who lure girls to auditions to play the Black Dahlia and then get murdered. In between looking at bodies and drinking with his partner, the younger drug cop, the rookie whose name I can't remember, looks up the original 40s murder online and dreams about it. That's pretty much it.

The killers kill in very long slow boring scenes before leaving body parts for the police. The police investigate, the killers kill some more ad infinitum. The acting sucks all around. All the murder scenes are very slow and boring and each killing is nearly identical the the last. There's also a lot of unnecessary after effects like rewinding and white flashes. Shots of a graveyard and the 40s reenactment are cut into weird places too. Footage is re-used so often I got to thinking they probably only shot an hour of video before beefing it up to 80 minutes in the editing room (and the credits are already rolling by 78 minutes).

Apart from those confused into thinking it's something else, who is this movie really for? It's not for mystery fans because everything is spelled out to the point where you wonder why the police haven't solved it. It's not for action fans because the action is rare and pathetic. It could only be for very patient low-brow perverts and ultra-low-brow gore hounds, and those people could easily find better somewhere else. I've been renting straight to video crap all year and this is the worst movie I've found so far. For your own sake, stay far away.