Nightstalker (2002)

Director:

Chris Fisher

Writer:

Chris Fisher (writer)

Release Date:

10 November 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Horror

Tagline:

Based On A True Story

Plot:

A horror film based on the life of Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, who terrorized people in the Los Angeles area during the mid-1980s.

Plot Keywords:

Nightstalker | Rape | Dead Woman | Stabbing | Serial Killer

Cast

Bret Roberts	...	Nightstalker
Joseph McKelheer	...	Demon
Roxanne Day	...	Cherry
Julian Garcia	...	Man on Couch
Christine Long	...	Maria
Mikal Kartvedt	...	SWAT officer (as Mike Kartvedt)
Ana Mercedes	...	Mrs. Riviera
Roselyn Sanchez	...	Gabriella Martinez
Danny Trejo	...	Officer Frank Luis
Derek Hamilton	...	Detective Elliot
Evan Parke	...	Lieutenant Mayberry (as Evan Dexter Parke)
Brandi Emma	...	Adrianne DeLoia
A.J. Buckley	...	Somo
Douglas Spain	...	Father Rodriguez
Aimee Graham	...	Mercedes Woman

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, language, drug use and sexuality.

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:18 | Netherlands:16 | Germany:18 | USA:R | Australia:MA

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Imperial Fish Company

Trivia:

After Lieutenant Mayberry talks to the press, and walks back into the police station with Dectective Elliot and Gabriella. He is mad at the snotty reporter so he throws a tantrum. This was ad-libbed by actor Evan Parke.

Quotes:

Nightstalker: But I'm not gonna be gone, EVER

Movie Connections:

Spoofs The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Ridiculous drivel.

This movie makes Paul W. S. Anderson and Uwe Boll look talented, and their flicks appear enjoyable. Unbelievably, Fisher's "Nighstalker" manages to be, simultaneously, campy and filthy, annoying and dull, unnerving and boring, ridiculous and repulsive. There is really nothing good about it, apart from perhaps the cover and Bret Roberts - the actor who portrays Ramirez (and even he looks - expectedly - embarrassed when the hack "director", Fisher, has him play a flour-covered "vampire" weirdo, which, in Fisher's 12-year-old mentality was intended as a "symbolic" representation of what Ramirez sees in his "possessed" mind during the crime spree).

The "story" is sub-imbecilic and is not in fact even loosely based on the actual events. Fisher's "writing" skills are almost as high as those of a drug-induced 13 year old metalhead, fresh after drinking a sixpack of beer and viewing "House of 1000 Corpses" with his Deicide tape playing right into his ears. In fact, said metalhead would probably write and direct a better movie than Fisher's (well, it certainly could not be any worse!) - at least in *his* film, there would be no unnerving stroboscopic Pokemon "techniques", which Fisher loves so much.

As far as the director's "factual" treatment and "research" go, this flick's script was apparently based on Fisher's experience of trying to read a short, misspelled summary of an article reviewing a book with a chapter whose part described a documentary about comic books depicting serial killers, who happened to include Ramirez. Fisher's directing is, if possible, even worse than his "writing" - often, this flick is simply unwatchable, with its shaky, chaotic camera movement and ridiculous (and nauseatingly long) high-speed segments set to obnoxious, vomit-inducing, ear-shattering noise which Fisher apparently considers to be "music" (and which in fact did not even exist in 1985 - Night Stalker would listen to the likes of AC/DC and Springsteen, not some antitalent, late 1990s Death Metal bands).

The only potentially redeeming aspect of this movie might be the fact that, much like Ed Wood's movies (which are, of course, infinitely better, involve much more talent, decent music and superior directing), it often manages to be unintentionally funny. For instance, Fisher often makes an infantile attempt at inserting cheap "ambience" into scenes by filling their backgrounds with repeated white noise and incomprehensible mumbling done in a low bass. He intends this mumbling to be the "voice of Satan", but it sounds exactly like the Psychlos from John Travolta's

Therefore, every time I heard Fisher's "Satan", I would think "Ooh-oh, it's Travolta the Terl!" and burst out laughing. Fisher's ludicrous image of "Satan" himself - the aforementioned flour-covered bald Howard the Duck reject with sharp teeth - made the scenes even funnier.

As for the DVD itself, there were some deleted scenes (even though the whole film should have been one deleted scene), a trailer, a bit better than the flick itself (in the same sense as gonorrhea is better than AIDS), plus a commentary track from Mr Antitalent himself, Chris Fisher (at least I've read that there is a commentary, on the DVD box - I did not actually listen to it, since I have no intention to hear talentless dolts drone about themselves.)

A while ago I bought the DVD with the TV film about Ramirez ("Manhunt") from Amazon Europe, and any second of that film highly surpasses Fisher's lameness. I never thought I could see someone less talented than Paul W. S. Anderson and Uwe Boll actually find employment in Hollywood - but today I saw him, and his name was "Chris Fisher".