A horror screenplay writer, Stanley Kaldwell(Judd Nelson, perfectly cast), works on his scripts in a cabin near a lake on the outskirts of Los Angeles, actually committing the murders authored for films! While a series of these murders are indeed successful(..he kidnaps the girls, placing them in a van, using the barking sounds of dogs recorded on a cassette to lure them closer, latches their foot to a chain locked in the center bolt of a basement room with a sink and mattress, with a wall and marker available to address your feelings to the captor, receiving food, before being blindfolded, curried by boat to a place in the middle of the lake, chained to a stone weight, and dropped into the water to drown, finally, after death, taken to a properly prepared underwater garden), a final female victim, Mallory(Hedy Burress), selected because of a phobia towards water, is rescued thanks to underwater divers, two special effects artists testing equipment and a deputy, Boone(Michael Weatherly)helping them. Mallory knows his face, is quite a tough, less intimidated adversary, and agrees to assist Boone and the effects technicians which work at the lake in a workshop to capture the killer/kidnapper on a camera hidden behind the eye of a prosthetic likeness of herself, planted underwater where she was spotted..but the plan is less than successful due to Stanley's finding their camera and escaping their clutches as police couldn't secure his location in time. Even worse, Stanley kidnaps Mallory a second time, from her hotel room, returning the poor girl to his hidden lair where she was the first time! Can she escape certain doom a second time or will Boone be able to save her from Stanley who has special plans for his nagging agent as well?
Not a graphically violent thriller, but featuring rather disturbing, macabre subject matter, directed with tongue firmly in cheek. You couldn't choose a better candidate for a cold and calculating psychopath than Judd Nelson who is completely able to provide that icy detached black void of humanity as he pushes victims into the water without flinching. Nelson's eyes express a chilling darkness, and he's suitably able to convey a dark soul, who is clever and cunning. The film's sick humor derives from the fact that a film's screenplay writer is an actual killer who acts out the material, using the victims themselves as inspiration. The underwater garden is really a twisted visual image, the way he goes about tending to the bodies of the girls he murdered..all part of the work, and it's authenticity. Also, the filmmakers take shots at how the production process strips away a writer's integrity by altering his work, as his agent and director often make suggestions and lament about what's wrong with the screenplay..their fates after confronting Nelson at his cabin was probably a fantasy many writers for movies have had over the years. Again, the violence is tame, it's the process with which Stanley operates that produces impact. Far fetched fate of Nelson at the end is a liability because it removed realism from the movie.
Not a graphically violent thriller, but featuring rather disturbing, macabre subject matter, directed with tongue firmly in cheek. You couldn't choose a better candidate for a cold and calculating psychopath than Judd Nelson who is completely able to provide that icy detached black void of humanity as he pushes victims into the water without flinching. Nelson's eyes express a chilling darkness, and he's suitably able to convey a dark soul, who is clever and cunning. The film's sick humor derives from the fact that a film's screenplay writer is an actual killer who acts out the material, using the victims themselves as inspiration. The underwater garden is really a twisted visual image, the way he goes about tending to the bodies of the girls he murdered..all part of the work, and it's authenticity. Also, the filmmakers take shots at how the production process strips away a writer's integrity by altering his work, as his agent and director often make suggestions and lament about what's wrong with the screenplay..their fates after confronting Nelson at his cabin was probably a fantasy many writers for movies have had over the years. Again, the violence is tame, it's the process with which Stanley operates that produces impact. Far fetched fate of Nelson at the end is a liability because it removed realism from the movie.