Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck

The horror of Richard Speck's 1966 killing spree can still be felt, especially in the Chicago area. However, Michael Feifer's seemingly unresearched script excludes many of the real story's gripping elements but does include several fraudulent cheap shots aimed at the Chicago Police Department as well as Chicago politicians. More than that, plenty of the lines the unfortunate actors have to deliver would be MS3K material if there were anything funny about the actual occurrences.

The direction and cinematography is every bit as crummy as the script. Corin Nemec's Richard Speck was an OK sort of movie psycho, even if he didn't capture the true worthlessness of the real Speck. The other actors, having even less to work with, deliver performances ranging from hammy to lifeless.

The real story of the killing spree has all the makings of a good, even great, movie such as In Cold Blood. But Michael Feifer's Chicago Massacre misses the mark by a wide margin.

This story and the victims deserved so much better than this film. The story line jumps around without any regard for fitting the pieces together. You get small glimpses of his childhood, marriage and previous criminal behavior without ever following through and finishing connecting to why we're being shown that. The acting is absolutely terrible, the actors look nothing like the people they're portraying, the "dorm" where the murders were committed looks nothing like the true location and worst of all is the movie isn't even that accurate. Having spent some time reading up about the events that transpired it's very clear that the movie did not care at all about accuracy. It's very hard to believe that the movie won an award of any kind.

If ONLY I had bothered to look this flick up on IMDb before buying it On Demand, I could have saved myself $3.95 and 11 minutes I'll never get back....that's how long I watched before being nearly overwhelmed by a compulsion to pluck out my eyes and slam them in a hardcover edition of War and Peace to ease my pain and heighten my entertainment.

I am a true crime buff, so I took a chance on this one.... lesson learned.

Of COURSE when I started to read the comments on IMDb, the first thing I read was "Don't say I didn't warn you".... you did, it was just my bad timing...

this movie FAILS.... i mean, it's an offense to any viewer, whether you're into true crime, thrillers, acting, cinematography, directing-it's a non-discriminating disappointment for all.... the set design is pretty bland, so at least that's not AWFUL....

I'm still trying to watch it, but only because I haven't yet decided what to watch instead...

this film is DREADFUL. I haven't felt this betrayed by a movie since the Black Dahlia. and THAT was a betrayal of biblical proportions...

(2007) Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck HORROR

Another straight-to-rental low budget serial killer flick produced, written and directed by Michael Feifer centering on disturbed real life killer Richard Speck (Corin Nemec) who may have been molested by his dad (like most other serial killer films) which may have drove him to massacre a group of trained nurses. While watching this, I was like what more can this film show me what I can't find online or from reading about it from newspapers which is nothing. Very cheap with over acting that can make a person like me cringe. I am sure there is a documentary made about this, what that instead.

An armed male intruder breaks into a women's dorm and with a gun and a butcher's knife binds and gags all the residents.Then one by one he stabs them cruelly and with great brutality.All of that happened in Chicago on the night of July 14,1966 in a dormitory that housed eight nurses who worked at the South Chicago Community Hospital.The perpetrator was Richard Speck,then 24,a drifter born in Illinois,raised in Texas,wandering from petty crime to petty crime and bar to bar.He had the words "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his arm."Chicago Massacre:Richard Speck" is a fairly accurate portrayal of this murderous loser.Of course some scenes are obviously fictionalized,so true crime buffs may be disappointed.The central performance of Corin Nemec is pretty good and menacing.The film is not as grimly effective as "Born for Hell" from 1976.Worth a rental but nothing more.