Murderlust

Those looking for graphic, bloody killings and exploitative elements will be sorely disappointed when watching this ultra-rare 80's obscurity. "Murderlust" has a very similar feel and simplistic style as "Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer," but the horrific murders in this case, tastefully happen off screen. The small budget works in favor of the movie, realistically showing the level of near poverty that the main character lives in. A low level security guard who also teaches Sunday school at his local church, Steve Belmont leads the ultimate double life. Among his church congregation, Steve is highly respected, and perceived as an upstanding, religious man. But his boss knows what a rude, heavy drinking dirt bag he really is. So does his neighbor, who lives next door to his disgusting dump of a rented room. Of course none of them know that Steve likes to pick up random women and strangle them to death. And things begin to unravel when his two worlds begin to overlap in this very tense, fascinating tale. "Murderlust" wouldn't be so effective if it wasn't for the impressive, highly believable acting job that Eli Rich turns in. He is amazingly believable as both the violent scumbag AND as the stand up pillar of the community that some think he is. His performance is chillingly authentic and understated. In fact the whole cast here is very good and appear quite natural in their roles. The fine acting and intelligent writing should earn this movie a much higher score than it has here. Obviously it wasn't seen by the right audience; in fact "Murderlust" is so rare that it most likely was seen by almost nobody. So if you are lucky enough to find a copy, and if you have an interest in the subject, I highly recommend it.

My review was written in June 1987 after watching the movie on Prism video cassette.

"Murder Lust", a B-feature originally titled "Mass Murderer" during production two years ago, takes a rather interesting premise (i.e., treating a deranged serial kill sympathetically) and wastes it via poor production values and execrable acting. Filmmaker Donald Jonesco-directed (with Mikel Angel) the more successful black comedy version of this theme, "The Love Butcher", a decade ago.

Eli Rich, a stone-faced thesp, portrays Steve Belmont, a seemingly okay guy who works as a security guard and does Sunday School volunteer work as a teacher. Twist is he covers up his impotence with women by picking up prostitutes, strangling them and throwing the bodies down a ravine out in the desert.

Besides his psychosis, Steve is burdened with numerous other problems: falling behind in his rent, losing his job when he's nasty to a woman, harassed by his mean cousin (Dennis Gannon) who hires him as a janitor in his store, etc. He's also trying to get away with faking his nonexistent college degrees to land a cushy job running an adolescent crisis unit at the Sunday school, which his girlfriend (Rochelle Taylor) rightly figures could be a focal point for the serial killer to seek out victims.

He's pushed over the edge when she gets the crisis unit's funding delayed until the killer is apprehended, putting Steve into a Catch-22 situation since he's the killer.

Painting such a monster as an outwardly kindly, community service-oriented chap is an effective story ploy, most tellingly esayed by Richard Attenborough in "10 Rillington Place". Here topline Rich is woefully inadequate, reading most of his lines as if reciting the phone book. Supporting cast, including several of the crew members in dual assignments, is nondescript. Tech credits are threadbare, not helped by a shrill synthesized musical score by writer-producer James Lane.

This dull and practically bloodless "thriller" tries hard to draw a smart and ambitious portrait of an atypical serial killer, but fails - and painfully - on every level. The main reason why "Murderlust" is unable to convince (or convince me, at least) is because the contrast between the two personas of the murderer/protagonist is too enormous and far too implausible. The guy, Steve Belmont, supposedly is a conservative Sunday school teacher and a respected member of a small catholic community during the weekend. But from Monday to Friday he lives - in that same small catholic community - in a flat that looks like a sleazy motel room, gets fired from simple security guard jobs and cruises around in a B.A. Baracus van to pick up prostitutes and wayward teen girls, so that he can strangle and dump them in the Mojave desert. Seriously, who believes that?

Other reviewers referred to "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" already. Why is that movie so effective and considered to be a cult/horror classic? Simple, because Michael Rooker - as Henry - is genuinely petrifying. Steve is never menacing, not even when he puts a gun against an innocent girl's head and forces her to cure his impotence. If this isn't bad enough already, "Murderlust" is also boring, monotonous, slow, and most of the amateur cast members can't even properly articulate.

I liked to watch the film that is portraying the behavior of the main character Belmont from a point onward when he already had become a serial killer and depicting his struggle between his lust for murder, working life and a love that had confessed her feelings for him ways too late to halt his unstoppable demise and the murders of women he commits. A well done acting , a very good cast, good pace, fairly good camera but gradually too low otherwise good music tells more about the odd mind of a killer and skips all odd police proceedings and crime investigation which is actually refreshing in 2020 overload of crime series. Also with the Australian Clermont killer being convicted for similar acts that movie has some actuality otherwise.

Murderlust (1985) is a very low budget film about a Sunday school teacher who seems like a popular guy with his fellow teachers, but in his spare time he likes to pick up young women (mainly hookers) and kill them (mostly by strangling).

Like i say the film was very low budget but also pretty boring, all of the killings were off-screen and there was hardly any blood at all, and no gore whatsoever, the acting was also pretty lame to be honest, and the storyline was pretty flat and routine.

All in all a very rare horror film to find, but thats because it's just not very good at all, stick with Henry: Portrait of a serial killer, it's far superior in every way to this poor effort!!! 3/10