Matty — ahem — KILLS some time with a perky Pierre David potboiler starring a future horror hero.

Doing exactly what it says on the tin, SERIAL KILLER bridges the gap between the VHS era’s copious Silence of the Lambs (1991)/Se7en (1995) riffs and the Ronseal programmers prolific B-movie peddler Pierre David belted out —  The Nurse (1997), The Landlord (1998), The Dentist (1996) — during the same period.

Sporting a lively script by DTV workhorse Mark Sevi (his second for David’s Image Organization, after Scanner Cop II (1995)), Serial Killer is a solid entertainment that best plays as a sort of kabuki-style take on the killer-thriller subgenre. Everything is heightened; from dialogue that exists purely to nudge the plot forward, to characters so broad they might as well slap their thighs at the end of every scene. Several pleasingly preposterous narrative developments even appear deliberately tongue-in-cheek, teasing a level of satire. Sevi, of course, knows his onions in that regard. He’d previously penned two of the form’s finest offerings, tip-top sequels Dead On: Relentless II (1992) and Relentless IV: Ashes to Ashes (1994), and the bulk of his other scripts — Class of 1999 II: The Substitute (1994), Sci-Fighters (1996), Arachnid (2001) — all possess flickers of mischief and reflexivity, irrespective of their overall quality. 

Attacking the material is an impressive cast. Again, the parts are stock; but Pam Grier, Andrew Prine, Marco Rodríguez, and Gary Hudson and Kim Delaney — reuniting as on-screen cops n’ lovers following their similar roles in David’s dreadful Ghost (1991) variation, The Force (1994) — ham it up with abandon, providing Serial Killer with plenty of cod-dramatic oomph. The film is, however, Tobin Bell’s show. Though it’d be another decade before Bell attained horror hero status, how the future Saw (2004) star’s robust portrayal of eye-gouging psycho William Lucian Morrano didn’t endear him to the casting directors of the then-major genre-makers in blue collar Hollywood (Band, Yuzna, Dimension et al) is a mystery. In lesser hands, Morrano’s shtick — half sub-Hannibal Lecter gobshite, half Bates-ish mama’s boy with attachment issues — would be painfully trite (cf. Keith Allan in Beyond Bedlam (1994)). The ultra-skilled Bell elevates the cartoon-y lunatic to a villain of Shakespearean proportions, and his chemistry with Delaney and her Jodie Foster surrogate is electric. 

Initially announced with Martin Kitrosser at the helm [1], Serial Killer stands as one of only two films David himself called “action!” on (well, some second unit work and the odd bit of uncredited additional shooting aside). As with his sole other directorial credit, Scanner Cop (1994), it’s a meat n’ potatoes affair in terms of composition and staging. Still, it doesn’t need to be Brian De Palma, and David can at least shape a scene and relate a cohesive story.

Shot in October 1994, Serial Killer was released on U.K. cassette by frequent David distributors First Independent on 29th January 1996. It hit U.S. tape eight days later, on 6th February, via co-producers Republic Pictures’ home video wing.

USA ● 1995 ● Thriller ● 90mins

Kim Delaney, Tobin Bell, Gary Hudson ● Dir. Pierre David ● Wri. Mark Sevi

[1] Credited as a co-producer on the finished film, Kitrosser went on to tackle Daddy’s Girl (1996), The Fiancé (1997), and Living in Fear (2001) for David.