Papertrail (1998) User Reviews

This is a trail I would avoid if I were you

[sutcal · 6/10 · 31 July 2001]

This is a low budget serial killer movie that is low budget and not the best quality acting either. In most serial killer movies, there is a twist or the killer is one of the characters you get to know. I won't give the ending away other than the "who is the killer" at the end of the movie is badly done (overworked) and leaves you pretty disappointed. I am also continually amazed at the stamina shown from gun shot victims (observe Mr Penn towards the end).

I am not sure what role Michael Marsden is playing in this movie. His character has no real bearing on the plot and fades in and out (and disappears before the end).

Its not big budget, has no big names and really is a TV/Video movie at best. Expect nothing flash and you won't be disappointed. There is a slight story there for the viewing, but its nothing that hasn;t been seen and done over and over and over (and much better as well)

Not worth the effort

Terrible Story, Awful Conclusion

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 10 February 2016]

When a killer kills a woman in an alley and brings her body with a severed arm to a movie theater, FBI Agent Brad Abraham (Michael Madsen) calls FBI Agent Jason Enola (Chris Penn) to help him in the investigation. Jason is an agent that destroyed his career and his family years ago obsessed to capture a serial killer; now the leads indicate that the same killer has just started a new crime spree. Soon the psychiatrist Dr. Alyce Robertson (Jennifer Dale) receives phone calls from the killer and she meets Abraham that asks her to talk to Jason. He asks to participate in a meeting with her patients William Frost (Chad McQueen); the agoraphobic Rachel Quinn (Terri Hawkes); Gail Morgan (Catherine Blythe); Jerry Saracen (Kenneth McGregor); and Eileen Gibbs (Thea Gill). Now Jason suspects that one of them might be the serial killer. Who might be?

"Papertrail" is a low-budget thriller with a terrible story and an awful conclusion. The characters are poorly developed and Michael Madsen has a very small part to give his name to the credits. The explanation given by the killer is laughable. But the attitude of Dr. Robertson summoning her patients in the middle of the night is ridiculous. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Mensageiro da Morte" ("Messenger of the Death")

Death is just a phone call away

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 24 February 2016]

****SPOILERS**** Low budget serial killer flick with Toronto Canada subbing for the Big Apple New York City having a killer on the loose with a strange hang-up of not only murdering his victims but photographing them and hacking off a part, an arm leg and even head, of their bodies. It's burned out FBI Agent Jason Enola, Chris Penn, who's recruited by his friend and fellow FBI Agent Brad Abraham, Michael Madsen, to track the killer down since he was on his case some 4 years ago that lead him to flip out in not being able to solve it. It's then that he locked himself away from society and become a recluse as well as have his wife with his two young daughters walk out on him.

It's the movie's low production values that make it work by concentrating on Agent Enola & Abraham's mostly police work and not much else to get the job done. There's also a major side plot about psychiatrist Dr. Alyce Robertson, Jennifer Dale, who accidentally stumbles on to the killer during a group session involving a number of her patients with serious mental problems; One just released from prison after serving four years for murdering his wife. The movie teases us as well as Agent Enola in just who the killer is. And the clues to his identity is kept form the audience as well as Agent Enola until he himself becomes a victim and is on the brink of death and as if having an out of the body experience puts two and two together.

****SPOILERS**** With Agent Enola shot and about to expire he suddenly gets superhuman strength and dashes out of the ambulance that's taking him to the hospital emergency ward to confront the killer who by then revealed who he or she is to a shocked Dr. Robertson the person whom the killer was after all along. Like Dr. Frankenstein the crazed and vengeful, towards Dr. Robertson, serial killer wanted her head to complete his operation in making the perfect woman from the parts of the women victims that he already murdered and hacked to pieces! But ended up a head short by the time the movie was over.

Should have bought the toilet paper

[lawfella · 2 August 2003]

They were selling this one at the supermarket for $3.99, the same price as the six-roll package of toilet paper. I made the wrong choice, as usual. A gruesome film noir about a serial killer who hacks off pieces of his victims' bodies before killing them. Hard to tell what was going on because both the lighting and sound recording were so poor, but there was some connection to a psychotherapist and her group therapy patients. Needless to say, lots of people had to die before the killer is identified and caught. (Partial spoilers ahead.) Don't bother trying to guess whodunit, because it is impossible to tell until the last minute, when the missing information is abruptly supplied out of nowhere. There is an (unintentionally) hilarious sequence in which hero Chris Penn, who, let's face it, is built more like John Belushi than like Arnold Schwarzenegger, is shot in the chest, injected with a sedative and tied down in the ambulance taking him to the hospital -- but powered only by his obsessive hatred of the killer, he manages to break free from his restraints, overpowers the ambulance attendants, drives off at high speed, gets into a collision with two or three other vehicles, abandons the ambulance and runs to the location where he believes the killer is located, all based only on one of those infallible "hunches" law enforcement officers always have in these films. Yes, he manages to thwart the killer's attempt to kill the final victim, who then remarks that "we need to get you to a hospital." The toilet paper I could have bought would not only have been more useful than this film, but it likely would have had superior narrative and cinematic qualities. Live and learn.

low rent serial killer flick, aggressively bad.

[dg-7 · 1/10 · 28 October 1998]

TRAIL OF A SERIAL KILLER is an aggressively bad entry into the serial killer genre, or in this case made for video which means I won't bother comparing the good movies in the genre(Seven, Kiss the Girls) or the bad(Copycat, Switchback) This movie which lurches across the screen before dying of its own nauses would deserve a mantle all its own.

The movie opens with a young girl who leaves a movie theatre(the Paradise none other) and is murdered on the walk home. But wait there's more. The killer takes the girl's picture, tapes her hands and then puts one of those movie notes in her mouth for Detectives Michael Madsen and Chris Penn to find, complete with magazine clipped lettering. It's hilarious, this killer with his sense of all purpose. And of course Penn has a psychological battle with the killer who "he knows" is responsible for this one too. The killer calls him and his family so you see it really is important that he finds this guy fast.

Did I mention the intercut between the shrink (Jennifer Dale) who only sees her crazy patients at night? One of her patients tells her she gets excited by committing violent acts. Is she the killer? Dale holds a meeting at a dark church for her most dangerous patients where we hear dialogue about sex and violence that's so corny you wonder how the actors could even respect the material enough to speak it. The whole movie's at such a garbage level what with the hollow plot and abandoned settings which smacks of four in the morning filming locations shot in warehouses and crackshops. The identikit, do everything killer is so bad it really is funny and Madsen and Penn spend the whole movie being over the top and macho when they should be taking fingerprints and watching smarter, techically competent movies of the genre.

A few weeks ago I was watching a show about killers where the host suggested that murderers like Ted Bundy should kill themselves instead of wasting society's time. You got a murder suicide plot, kill yourself is the point I think. TRAIL OF A SERIAL KILLER wants us to accept a serial killer, a cop, who we're supposed to suspect is crazy himself, wrapped up in a silly, low-rent world to find out who the killer is. Who knows? Who cares?

DG

NO STARS(out of four)

Buyer Beware

[saint_brett · 1/10 · 17 November 2021]

I was thinking - they should make a movie called "Cereal Killer." It'd be about a murderer going around killing people who eat the wrong brand of breakfast cereal of a morning.

What have we got here? The raincoat wearing killer from "I know what you did last Summer" choosing his first victim in Jack the Ripper type weather. Oh man, movie insolence - she just outran the killer and now she's going back to retrieve her belongings which she dropped along the way. And of course, Mr. Raincoat stranger is still in the vicinity.

We then meet the Kung Fu master from "Best of the Best." "What are you counting 'em for?" He's drowning his sorrows in straight whiskey and cursing out his wife in his best Joe Pesci impersonation. Oh, don't tell me he's playing a burntout cop?

I think this is gonna be about a mental patient whose killing in dedication to his former psychiatrist, who's disassociated with him long ago, and now he's back tormenting her and breaching the useless restraining order she's placed out against him, right?

So we're introduced to group therapy and I'm guessing our killer is among this selected band of weirdos? Or is that too obvious?

Killer just struck again and takes limbs of the body and is sewing them back together like in that other silly movie "Pieces." I think this movie's just riding off the back of the success of "Silence of the Lambs" and "Seven," which are far superior movies.

This one seems to be confined to the same three bleak filming locations in a tiny environment. It livens up a tad though when Nicole Sheridan is plied silly with shots of tequila, by some opportunistic scumbag, and juices the screen up with a raunchy sex scene.

Holy crap, Don The Dragon Wilson? What's he doing in this?

Movie doesn't reach any high points as a lot of the running time is chewed up by one-on-one banal conversations.

I know who the killer is! I'll go out on a limb and say that it's the lady psychologist!

This movie just blatantly ripped off 2 scenes from "Silence of the Lambs" and "Seven" with no shame. (Think - Little Trees, basement bodies, and Lecter in the ambulance.) Movie points at everyone being the killer, keeping it a guessing game till the end. But no doubt whoever it is you won't care!

Who the hell is Rachel? She wasn't even in the movie! Her justification for mutilating girls was less than paper thin! "Remember Aunt Betty? Well I'm her cousin's cousin sister from the funny farm, which you abandoned, so now I'm running around murdering complete strangers to be at one with myself." Frigging please! How weak.

The climax of this movie is worse than erectile dysfunction!

Imagine a woman going to bed with the man of her dreams and he only lasts 5 seconds, leaving her laying there unfulfilled and bumfuzzled. (Does that 70's song, "More, More, More," mean anything?) What a lame ending!

They reveal the killer at the end, who's a new character altogether, and she wasn't even a character in the movie to even begin with.

I wish I could use more R-rated language to express my disgust at the ending of this time waster!

This movie was cruising to a modest 4, or 5, out of 10 until that stupid conclusion to the identity of the uninspired killer revelation!

This reminds me of Eastwood's "Tightrope" movie - top movie, but who in the hell was the killer at the end?

Not at all bad; I enjoyed it!

[raylynhan · 7/10 · 30 July 2006]

This movie is not as bad as some would have you believe, at least not in my opinion. As a self confessed fan of both Chris Penn and Michael Madsen I may come at this with a biased view; but for a low budget thriller it is not at all bad. A serial killer has resurfaced after a 4 year absence and is once again tormenting a burnt out, loose cannon FBI agent. Will he be able to track down the killer before they go underground again? Matters are complicated when it appears that the killer is changing their usual pattern and is now somehow tied up with a female psychologist and her latest group of patients. To say much more would give away too much of the plot, which although not the most original ever, is the basis for an enjoyable and suitably atmospheric thriller. The acting is good and both Chris Penn and Michael Madsen are their usual charismatic selves. Of the peripheral characters perhaps the most interesting to watch is Chad McQueen both for the revelation of his character's storyline, which is not fully disclosed until the almost the end, and because he is the son of Steve McQueen (talk about a hard act to follow!).

loved it

[Braxton · 9/10 · 15 January 1999]

Yes I liked this movie. Why? because I didn't bother comparing it to others in the serial killer genre. It was low budget, yes, but it had strong performances from the always entertaining Chris Penn and Michael Madsen. Other performances (such as Jennifer Dale and the guy who played William) make this movie noteworthy as well. The first time I saw it, I wasn't too terribly impressed, but I watched it again, and I liked it far more the second time, and the third. There were funny moments (Enola talking to the lawyer) and heart-wrenching times (i.e. Enola calling his kids) and very nice tensions were built up in the therapist's office. I'd give this movie a 7/10, nice job all!

Bad Bad Bad

[fuzaborsky · 24 February 2003]

Horrible acting, horrible writing, ridiculous story. I like Penn and Madsen and thought this may be good. Boy was I wrong. Like the earlier reviewer asked. Why was Madsen in this movie?? He did drift in and out and added absolutely nothing to the story and he did in fact disappear before the conclusion. Weird. I did get a laugh from how bad some of the writing was. Just listening to some of the lines being read was hilarious.