Smiley Face Killers

...and believe me, I've watched some bad ones.

Watched this because it was a Lionsgate films and generally they are fine but what even was this.

You take a premise of a well known spree of crimes and it becomes this boring mess.

Could have been so much more. Forgettable.

You'll be disappointed. I watched this movie because Crispin had top billing. But he's shown only for a few seconds here and there, and he's wearing prosthetics, so you don't even recognize him. And with Ellis penning the script, I would have thought this would be better. Don't bother.

So themes of mental health, serial killing, and religious fanaticism I guess. Acting seems borderline dull and a bit too "on the nose" as college students. And the plot maintains very little other than he seems depressed and they are psychotic. Doesn't really go anywhere or get to anything of a point. Just there, flat.

It got to the stage where I had to make a reference of the point at which something actually happened of any note. It's a 96 minute film and it took 64 minutes before anything remotely worth watching took place. In fact, of the entire runtime there is a sum total of around 1.5 minutes that are worth watching, and they take place in one short scene. How could anyone involved in this have sat through it and not realised how monumentally DULL it is?

And why on earth pay Crispin Glover to play a role in which he doesn't say a single word and is so heavily made-up that it could literally be anyone?

The two stars are solely for the one gory scene, as that is well done.

There isn't a single aspect of this movie that works. It has some if the dullest shots ever seen on film, half of the movie is literally just people walking and acting confused. It's even a bigger disgrace that they dared to even remotely allude that the events depicted are based on a true story. If you plan on watching it just because of Crispin Glover, he's in the movie for like a minute and has no lines.