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.

I am very familiar with the true life case of Richard Speck and have to say that if you are at all interested in learning about him, his victims and the crime, this movie will not give you an accurate representation at all. Like the 2004 movie "Speck" with Doug Cole, this movie lacks realism and strays far from the true story it is supposed to be telling. First off, the dormitory Speck murders the nurses in, in the movie is one story and spread out like a hospital ward with several rooms. The two-story South Chicago townhouse that the real murders took place in was cramped, with three small bedrooms upstairs and a living room and kitchen downstairs. This may seem like nitpicking but it's actually a major mistake that the filmmaker commits, because much of the horror of the real life story comes from the fact that Speck was able to murder all of these women in such close, claustrophobic quarters. It would have added so much to the movie if they had gotten this right. Secondly, Speck was not vicious, violent and murderous all the time whether drunk or sober in real life as the movie portrays him. In actuality the real Speck, when sober, was a sniveling coward who was afraid to fight, lacked self-confidence, was ashamed and embarrassed of his pockmarked face and a mama's boy who, even as an adult, relied on his mother to bail him out of jail and get him out of whatever trouble he got himself into. He only had a modicum of self-confidence and mostly just became nasty, violent and obnoxious when he got drunk and/or high. In prison, the other prisoners turned him into their bitch and forced him into humiliating sexual practices at their whim. Not exactly the scary cowboy-hat wearing outlaw portrayed in the movie. I'm not minimizing the fact that Richard Speck was a dangerous and vicious killer. But it would've been nice to have seen a more accurate 3 dimensional portrayal of what he was really like. Thirdly, the actors in this movie who play the cops are lousy. Their overacting and over-reacting would do William Shatner proud. The performances are laughable and the writing is on par with a cheesy cop show from the sixties or an Ed Wood movie. Fourthly, this ceases to be a horror movie and is just downright nasty and unpleasant in it's, perhaps, too graphic depiction of the murders of the nurses. This is not cartoonish Michael Myers, Halloween horror here. It's a tragic real life story that had horrific, sad and awful consequences. This movie insults the viewer's intelligence and is patronizing in it's spoon fed violence. Richard Speck was a worthless shard of human debris who can't and shouldn't be celebrated or mythologized in any way. After watching this train wreck of a so-called movie, I can only say may no more would-be John Carpenters or George Romeros try to put his vile life to film again, unless of course they do it on a larger budget, with a better script, better director and better actors. I agree with what the other person said about Corin Nemec, his performance is good, but only his performance is good. I am in shock and awe that somebody thought this movie was better than David Fincher's "Zodiac"!

John Gacy, Jeffrey Dahlmer, Ed Gein, Ted Bundy…Richard Speck? If you are reading the names above and singing the Sesame Street song "One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong", then you might want to google the events of July 14th 1966.

It was on this date that Richard Speck, a violent and unstable man, high on alcohol and drugs, took hostage and murdered eight nurses in a quiet Chicago, Illinois community.

The details of the evening as later uncovered and recounted by the one surviving witness – Corazon Amurao, a nurse who hid under a bed during the hours long ordeal – are as graphic and repulsive as any mass murder in American history.

The fateful evening started when Speck broke into a townhouse located at 2319 East 100th Street where he soon took the nurses and huddled them together bound on the floor. One by one, Speck would separate each nurse and rape and repeatedly stab or strangle the victim. While the other nurses lay helpless on the floor awaiting Speck's return between victims, they were terrorized by the sounds of screams and then the deathly silence of their friends being picked off one by one.

Chicago Massacre : Richard Speck, tells the story of the man who took headlines on July 15tgh 1966. We first get introduced to the man who would be monster back in his home town outside of Dallas Texas. Immediately we recognize someone who puts a capital "A" in the word "Asshole". But as the film chronicles, nothing in Speck's past would have alerted authorities to the atrocities that he would later commit.

Directed lazily by Michael Feifer, who's directorial history log has six films and counting including Ed Gein : The Butcher of Plainfield, Chicago Massacre quickly goes from a character study of a serial killer and into full made-for-TV type schlock. Sorry horror fans but there is little to see here in terms of capturing the terror Speck reigned down upon those girls and the city until his capture.

In the role of Speck is actor Corin Nemec who is entirely unconvincing and probably miscast. I am more inclined however to give Nemec a 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card and instead point the finger directly at director/writer Feifer who gave the actor very little to work with in what could have been a fascinating look into the darkest hours of a madman's killing spree.

For those of you looking for a film that would delve into the horror of the infamous event, you will be disappointed. There is absolutely no drama, no sense of terror and no atmosphere surrounding the fateful night. The atrocities and blood spilling are enacted with a PG-13 type direction and the non-linear storytelling just takes two steps forwards and one step back on a DVD that I kept checking the time on the LED display to figure out how many more minutes I had to endure before I finally saw the mercy of the end credits. The lone bright spot was seeing Tony Todd (Candyman) in a cameo just so that my mind could wander to remembering the details of a better film.

So stay away from this clunker and do yourself a favor and try and catch the Bill Kurtis narrated American Justice that dealt with Specks life in and out of prison. Otherwise, leave this one on the shelf and don't be fooled by the lure of an emotional attachment with the words "based on a true story" draped across the DVD cover package.

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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...

This film should have been pretty easy to make watchable. You've got an intriguing subject - a serial killer - so pretty much just telling his story, documentary-style, would be interesting enough. The film pretty much writes and directs itself.

Yet writer-director Michael Feifer manages to turn an easy win into a massive loss. The plot is absolutely dull and lifeless, performances are unconvincing, production is basic. Hardly the Mindhunter-type story I was expecting.

Avoid.