Murderlust — Murderlust(DVD)
The film was made in 1985, going to straight to video at that time, & while it’s clearly a low-budget affair- it offers up a well told & twisting story. With a mostly good & convincing cast thorough-out, and an enjoyable synth based score.
Murderlust tells of Steve Belmont( played by Eli Rich)- who has somewhat of a double life. During the daytime he is a Sunday School teacher, and security guard. And at night-time he drinks heavily, and kills women- becoming tagged by the papers as Mojave slayer, as he dumps his bodies in the desert. The film portrays his progression from killing prostitutes to students, and his slowly slipping mask of sanity. Rich does a great job as the killer, managing to portray him in a balanced manner- moving from polite & approachable, to sinister & predatory, onto raging & unbalanced.
Most of the supporting cast are pretty good & believable too, and in particular Neil( played by Dennis Gannon) who is the killers cousin & neighbour. Gannon plays the role in a great campy & often sarcastic manner, and him & Rich have some quite humorous exchanges. Though these moments never take away from the films grim-ness, and in a way they help to humize the character of the killer more, which in turn makes the whole thing more effective.
As mentioned in my opening paragraph- Murderlust is rather void of any gore, torture, or prolonged violence. So if this is the type of serial killer film your after it’s best to look elsewhere, as the killings( done with a rope mostly) are tame, and often done of camera.
The score is also fairly effective snthy bound affair, that goes from eerier music box like, though to more pacey-yet-angular synth runs. Onto the occasional more dramatic & almost soapy. Though it’s a fairly standard 80’s soundtrack, with no really overtly memorable or distinctive cues. It’s just good & serviceable, enhancing the scenes when needed.
Extra wise for Murderlust we get a trailer, and full commentary by James Lane- who wrote, produced, filmed, and wrote the soundtrack for the film. His commentary starts off a little slow & sporadic, but fairly soon he gets into his pace. Going on to offer an interesting & informative track, which discusses not only the films production, but low-budget film production in general in the 1980’s- so this is well worth checking out.
The other extra on the disc is Project Nightmare- this is a 1979 film, which was the first feature from James Lane & Donald Jones( who directed Murderlust). It’s a very, very lo-budget Sci-fi movie. It tells of two friends who awake on a camping trip, to find they are been pursued by entity-displaying it’s self as coloured lighting & lo-fi effects. The film features a tiny cast of four or so people, taking in a cabin, desert road, and a light aircraft as its settings. At times it’s muddled & arty, at other a little dull & unappealing. It’s no way as worthy as Muderlust, or even a rewarding 70’s sci-fi film- though it’s a quite quirky in places, & you get commentary by Lane( only partial)- so it does make for a nice extra to the main feature.
All in all this is a nicely presented release of these two long-lost VHS era films. So if you enjoy more character study based serial killer films this is well worth tracking down- just don’t expect too much from Project Nightmare.