Primetime Murder

After the three models have been serially murdered by a black-gloved killer with his-or-her shears, a young and delicate model, Francesca Werther, gets a chance to be the very star of the forthcoming show titled LA NOTTE DELLE STELLE. But the problematic killer continues to murder people around her, and then both Inspector Di Palma of the Homicide Division of the local police and Francesca's room-mate, Claudia, begin to investigate the cases...

The fisrt five-minute of this film seems to be worth hoping; like in the Dario Argento's Gialli, a black-gloved and black-shod murderer with his-or-her shears, razor, and spooky voice attacks the brunette model and puts her down from the 10th floor of the building. And then the body falls and crashes the modernistically-reinforced-glass-roof of the next building, but no one realises it mainly because there is an orchestral performance. This seems to be a desirable opening sequence of a Giallo, and can be expected to produce some brilliant ongoingness. Unfortunately, though the impressively delicate beautifulness of Sascha Zacharias is highly attractive, the rest of the film is almost unexpectedly bad. Indeed, though this Italian-Canadian(-and-partly-Czech) co-produced film is interestingly influenced not only by the Italian Gialli but also by the American horror films (particularly by THE BURNING which has a famous killer with his impressive shears), the film as a whole seems to be a cheap Canadian B-horror-film rather than an Italian Giallo. To make matters worse, the very identity of the murderer is independently problematic; the film-makers seem to superficially, carelessly, and almost innocently adopt the noble ideas of THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE and of TENEBRE. But, after all, the director/co-writer, Alessandro Capone, isn't and can't be Dario Argento, and therefore the problematic identity of the murderer isn't and can't be surprising; it is simply provocative and/or disappointing. In addition, it should be said this film has incredibly many meaningless and/or useless elements. For instance, the two detectives of the Homicide Division are meaninglessly always taking about making and breaking their vows not to smoke, and Claudia, who is the room-mate of the heroine, is always announcing the sadly amateurish knowledge of the Freudian psychology, and her apparently meaningful words are, after all, meaningless and/or useless. In this sense, this film has something common with Maurizio Prodeaux's below average Giallo, DEATH CARRIES A CANE (a.k.a. THE TORMENTOR). Still, as I already pointed out, it seems to be much better to say that this film as a whole is nothing but of the exactly same kind of the post-SCREAM Canadian films, like THE CLOWN AT MIDNIGHT and RIPPER.

The premise and first minutes of the movie made me think of Dario Argento's "Opera". One of the best gialli from the 80's in my opinion. Then the movie took a direction in the likes of "The Burning", a slasher cult classic from the early 80's. The truth is that "Primetime Murder" is a Horror Thriller with no personality or direction. The movie is not a straight slasher nor a Mystery movie or Thriller. The resolution and the reasons for the murderer are just random.

In fact, it looks like an effort from Hallmark T.v.! I wonder if this was direct to video on it's initial release. The truth is that I catched it on Mexican Local t.v. at 4:30 a.m. The only time a movie like this would show up. There isn't gore, violence, mystery, etc. Nothing.

Please, avoid this one like the plague. It just won't offer anything. In fact, it just doesn't fits in the Horror category.