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Detective Megan Paige (Eliza Dushku) is tracking down a serial killer who finds girls with twin initials and dumps them in a city with the same beginning letter (such as Kelly Kapowski in Kingston). But when she gets too attached to the case, she suffers a mental breakdown. When the killings continue, can she overcome her problems to stop him from striking again?

I thought the film would be a pretty decent one... the concept was interesting, even if the movie strays quite a bit from the real events this was based on. And the cast is impressive. Dushku is pretty amazing, Cary Elwes is one of my all-time favorite actors, Timothy Hutton is here, Michael Ironside, and genre fave Bill Moseley. So you can't beat this ensemble cast.

But sadly, it just didn't add up for me. It was predictable (even the "twist" seemed obvious from early on) and not as engaging as one might think. It wasn't even as good as another recent murder / detective story I reviewed, "Anamorph" (which was itself not all that amazing). I've been a fan of Rob Schmidt's work, especially "Right to Die" and thought he'd be a good person to bring a dark angle to this story. Sadly, not so much... clichés such as a child-obsessed priest appear, and some (presumably imaginary) ghosts that don't really add to the film.

I wouldn't say not to watch this one, but it wasn't gripping. There isn't one thing I can pinpoint as making this film stand out -- not the music, the lighting, the effects... it was all pretty standard. It almost would have been more fitting for a Lifetime movie. As far as serial killers go, this one comes off as remarkably tame. If you want your psyche thrilled, look somewhere else.

The Alphabet Killer is based very, very loosely on a real story. But screenwriter Tom Malloy pretty much made this story entirely his own. The basic facts of the case are that there once was a killer whose victims were young girls whose first and last names started with the same letter. And that killer dumped the bodies in towns with names beginning with that same letter. For example this film's first victim is Carla Castillo, found in Churchville. Where does this movie want to go from there? Well, it turns out not to really be about the killer but about the young detective investigating the crime, Megan Paige. Eliza Dushku plays the role and the movie was always going to sink or swim on her performance. Dushku just about manages to keep the film afloat.

The film veers toward the supernatural and/or psychological as Megan Paige begins to be haunted by visions. Is she really seeing things or just losing her mind? She ends up having a nervous breakdown and losing her position as a detective, demoted to a desk job. But when the bodies of more young girls turn up, following the alphabet pattern Megan had obsessed on, she's back on the case. Her new partner, played by screenwriter Malloy himself, is understandably wary. Eventually the two bond and make some progress in the case. But the killer remains elusive and Megan will not let the case go. Her frustrations manifest themselves in more of these visions or hallucinations or whatever they are. Megan is losing it again and it's a race against time to solve the case before she goes completely crazy. And of course before the killer strikes again.

All in all it is pretty familiar serial killer stuff like we've seen in so many other films. The focus on an investigator who happens to be losing her mind is a bit of a different angle. But ultimately things play out pretty much as you would expect from the genre. Dushku performs a challenging role reasonably well. The supporting cast, including some familiar faces such as Cary Elwes and Timothy Hutton, is fine as well. But the film never threatens to make the leap from being decent to being really good. The story starts with promise but once it settles into its rhythm there is the sense that initial promise is not being paid off. The story kind of lags, things are a little mundane. They try to spice things up a bit by throwing in those haunting, sometimes scary visions of Megan's. But that gets a little repetitive and loses its impact. You know the film is going to go for a big reveal at the end but when it does the effort falls somewhat flat. The ending is actually rather predictable, not nearly as thrilling as it needs to be for the film to really excite you. Ultimately The Alphabet Killer is a decent little movie but that is about the best that can be said. Not a terrible way to spend 100 minutes but far from spectacular.

Eliza Dushku is the one who delivers in this fairly predictable serial killer story, reminiscent of such films as "Gothika" and "Jennifer Eight". There are also a lot of serial killer movie alumni populating the lesser roles of this film, like Bill Moseley, Timothy Hutton, Tom Noonan and Cary Elwes. They don't really matter though, because it's all about Dushku's character Megan Paige and her late onset schizophrenia which makes it very difficult for her to crack the case of the Alphabet killer, as well as keep the confidence of her fellow police officers.

Movies that focus on characters with mental disorders are often interesting and unpredictable, like Polanski's "Repulsion" or Fincher's "Fight Club" because they makes the audience question what's reality in the movie and what's just playing out inside the mind of the main character. Unfortunately this isn't one of those movies. Instead of trying to make the audience share in Megan's delusions, they are clearly separated and labeled to avoid any confusion, or excitement for that matter. Instead we are made to watch her from the outside and see her struggling to connect with her colleagues and convince them that she's completely sane despite her textbook "crazy person" behavior. Like I said, Dushku delivers a solid performance as a distraught, emotionally unstable and sometimes delusional police woman. It's just hard to get invested in her character because of the boring predictable story she slowly fights her way through.

There is not a single supporting character that comes off as more than some kind of one-dimensional stereotype. There's the honest cop, the crooked cop, the former lover, the one true friend, the calm doctor, the obvious suspect, the creepy priest and eventually, for a brief time at the end, the killer... non of them with any significant character development or depth. This movie isn't painful to watch and it's not poorly made, it just suffers from lack of imagination on the directors part and some sloppy writing. See it, don't see it... doesn't really matter.

Saw the rating of 6/10 on here and decided to give this a try. Bad mistake!

I thought this was the worst serial killer movie I have ever seen. You know it's a bad sign when the serial killer seems more sane than the lead character.

The lead character was not very bright nor likable, and I spent most of the movie hoping for her demise.

Just because it's loosely based off a real life event does not mean it should become a movie.

I would NOT recommend this movie at all.

This crime thriller centers on a detective named Megan (Eliza Dushku) who investigates a series of child murders in upstate New York. But Megan suffers from a mental illness, the symptoms of which get worse as she delves deeper into the killings. She hears strange voices and sees "visions" related to the victims.

With low light levels and muted colors, combined with creepy background music, the film's first half creates an effective thriller atmosphere. We see the outline of the killer, but never the face. Will Megan solve the murders and overcome her illness, or will the inept police supersede, to botch the case? As viewers, we root for Megan to succeed.

Although the script idea originates from a real-life murder case, referred to generally as the "double initial" serial killings, which terrorized upstate New York in the early 1970s, the film's overall plot and main characters are fictional. The story setting is the present, not the 1970s. The scriptwriter created the Megan character out of thin air. And the story's outcome deviates considerably from the outcome of the real-life case. The film's writer wrote a fictional plot, based on a real-life premise. The film's second half fails to convince, largely because of its clichéd plot contrivances.

Visuals consist of an annoying widescreen projection and some hokey CGI effects, in the form of "ghosts". But the low lighting contributes tension, as does some clever low-angle camera shots. And the director relies mostly on a hand-held camera, which enhances realism. Overall casting and acting are fine.

"The Alphabet Killer" gets off to a great start. But it falters in the second half, owing to fictional plot points that dilute the underlying real-life premise. I would have preferred a narrative that followed the true story, though I understand that the reason for not doing so was budget constraints. By lowering one's expectations, the viewer may find the film worthwhile, either as a fictional thriller or as a character study of a woman fighting her own demons.

I like films about killers, especially those with an interesting little story or something that makes them a bit different. The Alphabet Killer doesn't disappoint in this respect.

I'll admit, the start was pretty poor, I felt it was quite disjointed and it seemed as though a lot of scenes that should have been there to develop the plot were on the cutting-room floor. However, once we get into the middle and latter stages of the film, we definitely see a marked improvement.

I think Eliza Dushku played her role well in this, and I felt the slant of Megan's mental illness playing such a large part in the story made her character more believable, and added interest to the film.

Overall, this was a nicely put together film. It had little gore or anything really adult-themed, so if that's what you're after this isn't for you. If you want a killer movie portrayed more through the eyes of the main detective than is usual, you might like this. Yeah, you'll probably suss it out, but that's half the fun.

Eliza Dushku (Megan Paige) was simply distracting. The film was dull with terribly stereotypical characters. Simple as that.

i just lost interest in the film. I honestly don't understand how other reviews hype Eliza's performance as 'amazing.' I was not impressed. Unfortunately, the only memorable piece of the film was her bland, unconvincing, portrayal of the lead role. She seemed confused, and noticeably self-conscious throughout the film. She is a very pretty girl, and maybe she has chops, but i'm still not confident she does yet.

If you're looking for a run-of-the-mill serial killer flick and you are easily drawn into stories despite sub-par acting.. This film may be a decent couple hours of mindless entertainment. If you are looking for anything else.... Im afraid you will not find it in this movie.

I watched THE ALPHABET KILLER on Showtime last night. It is based on a true-life serial killer case in Rochester, New York. However, I'm not sure if the true events that inspired this thriller included a dogged homicide investigator who pursues a child murderer, despite suffering from schizophrenia. It's an interesting take, though.

Eliza Dushku, does an incredible job playing Megan Paige, the detective, whose condition makes her believe she can see the spirits of the victims. I found her character very sympathetic; and, quite believable.

Unfortunately, the movie was a bit predictable (even the "twist" seemed obvious to me).

I normally am not a fan of crime movies, especially those based on reality but stretched to the extreme, and the "Alphabet Killer" is no exception. Poor acting, horrible misrepresentation of reality, inaccuracy beyond belief, and camera work that my high school journalist could have topped takes this movie to the bottom. I do, however, enjoy movies that i don't know what's going to happen five minutes into it, and that is where this movie does succeed.

I watched "Alphabet Killer" twice; once confused and then once playing the "Alphabet Killer" drinking game. Neither was incredibly enjoyable but compared to most of the films these days it was not repulsive. If you are bored and happen to have a free redbox code its worth the 2 hours for sheer enjoyment of how truly worthless cops are.

I know this is one of my less useful reviews but i really don't have much to say about this movie; that's why i watched it twice. It really isn't that bad but at the same time it's not that good. I gave it the benefit of having funny cop hating to get the 6 instead of the 4.

I only basically wanted to see the location shots of my crap city, and surely did notice a few! The part that really drove me insane is the use of cell phones and laptops. I noticed the cars were pretty old looking but when the dad of Wanda hands over HER CELL PHONE to the cops for her contacts-- the movie was just dead to me after that. The kid was 12 year old and the year was 1972. Also I wasn't sure about the time frame because I think the killer struck again well before two years after the first girl's death.

I know it was only supposed to be "based on" these murders, but if they went to all the trouble of actually filming on location in Rochester, why didn't they go for a little more credibility? It was just meh, but again, fun for the location shots, and Eliza Deshku is always very good in everything.

An interesting premise of a Detective going insane while investigating a case is so ineptly handled here as to become irrelevant. It relies only on hand twitching and neck bending with a hallucination of pasty face corpses walking around.

After TV shows like CSI and Dexter there is no excuse for this bland, dull, and un-stylish movie. It cannot rise above anything more than a well below average excuse for a serial killer story that is as uninteresting as a serial killer story could possibly be. In fact, the whole process of filmmaking is so lacking in creativity it is criminal.

There is nothing to recommend except that it is a notch above awful, and oh yes, shaky camera fans can rejoice, because here we go again, but at least the lead actress doesn't mumble.

There is not a lot that is original here. After all, the Alphabet killer first made his appearance in 1966 in London, and was sought by none other than Hercule Poirot. This is an up to date version, based loosely on a real killer in America, and with currently hot stars.

Rob Schmidt, who directed Wrong Turn, is at the helm, and he brought along Eliza Dushku from that film (also "Tru Calling", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer").

The rest of the cast is very familiar: Cary Elwes (Saw), Oscar winner Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People), Oscar nominee Melissa Leo (Frozen River), and Bill Moseley (Halloween, The Devil's Rejects, Grindhouse).

Dushku is a police Lieutenant who has visions and attempts suicide in pursuit of a killer.

The movie was fairly interesting because of the actors, but it was ultimately just another police procedural with nothing special to set it apart from and episode of the Ghost Whisperer.

Interesting concept and an OK storyline that had potential to be so much more interesting than what was created.

The audio creates a very creepy atmosphere at times and the CG is quite effective in adding to this eerie atmosphere. For the first 15 minutes, the film started very well and I was hoping to to be thrilled and suspended for the entire length of the movie... No such luck!

The film was poorly executed and the script was bland and uninteresting.

There was hardly any character development and the Heroine in this movie was annoying and useless. The story was disjointed and the characters were just thrown in the mix without much consideration to the plot. The twist in the movie was like having the straightest chip taken out of a Twisties packet. Not much of a twist at all!

The over exaggerated movements and terrible acting of Eliza Dushku contributed to this film's demise. The script fails drastically to address empathy from viewers and within 15 minutes of watching this, I succumbed myself to 83 minutes of mediocrity.

Bitterly disappointed.

This film confirmed to me that Eliza Dushku cannot act at all.

With no originality at all and plenty of bad things in its core, "The Alphabet Killer" comes to ruin what could be a good story about the real events surrounding the alphabet killer, a psychopath that kidnapped and killed several girls whose initial letters were the same and he never got caught by the police.

Eliza Dushku plays an detective working on the case, trying to discover who this guy is and trying to recover her own sanity after seeing strange hallucinations and visions of the victims while investigating the case. She gets some help from Timothy Hutton's character, a paraplegic psychologist and from another detective; and doesn't get along with her ex-boyfriend (Cary Elwes) who also covers the case.

So, the movie is more about her traumatic and ridiculous moments than to save lives or catch a killer. The director and writers didn't know how to built a suspense and sustain a mystery, everything is so slow and they didn't know how to scare the audience (although the final revelation of who the killer was is so predictable that you might laugh or say that is unbelievably bad). It's not just that that ruins the film, it is also the twisted moments that Dushku has and we're forced to watch being the worst the scene where she escapes from the hospital where she was held, breaking the arm of a nurse even though she already dominated him, and he couldn't do anything with her. That scene is pathetic, also the scenes with her delusions and the "music in her ears" in the church scene.

"The Alphabet Killer" is filled with bad acting, a story with no involvement, no thrill, nothing. Dushku and Elwes are terrible, what a bomb! What happened to Elwes eyebrow? He looked like a old female witch; and Dushku had the guts to produce something like this. The surprising good acting in this thing comes from Melissa Leo and Martin Donovan playing the parents of the Walsh girl, one of the victims; Jack McGee has some good moments and Timothy Hutton is there for reasons of embarrassment and those things can happen with a previous Oscar winner.

Movies inspired in real events usually are good and I enjoy it, but this one is a almost supernatural dramatic flick who has nothing good in it, a waste of time. Pathetic! 2/10