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Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck

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1 star:		(6)

 

 

I know this was a low budget film that went straight to video, still it is worth pointing out to potential viewers that while sometimes this happens to even good films, that isn't the case with this movie.

Poorly filmed, possibly in an unsuccessful effort to appear 'artistic', poorly acted, and very short on reality, this just turns out to be a waste of viewing time for nearly any viewer.

Those interested in 'True Crime' will be turned off by the lack of accuracy, as well as the absence of any real detailed truths. Viewers hungry for 'violence' will be disappoined that only one murder was actually enacted and little gore was depicted and even that will be considered tame and uninteresting by those who enjoy that sort of thing. Inconsistencies will bug even the casual viewer; such as the use of the terms 'forensics' and 'mass murder'; terms not in common usage even by police personnel in 1966. Though mass murder has occurred in the United States long before 1966 and 'forensics' has been practiced for centuries prior to Sherlock Holmes', the terminology had not crept into English usage at the time of these murders. The lack of forensics knowledge in tha era was however accurate in the film (no, not in the dicussion about the preservation of the crime scene, which was rarely a thought in 1966), but in the fact that the first dectectives on the scene freely touched doors and surfaces throughout their initial investigation. Even the locale of the killings was inaccurate. The nurses were murdered in a two-story townhouse setting (then referred to as apartments)not in a dormitory, as in the film. I would think one would be as easy as the other to obtain when scouting movie locales. Even the wardrobe seemed wrong for the era.

The movie-makers could have saved money by shooting in black and white and not lost anything in the exchange.

I would not recommend this film as a movie that any movie lover would likely find interesting.

I have got to think that maybe it's not a great idea to make feature length videos about dull-witted and very boring criminals who go on alcohol/drug-induced murder sprees.What we end up seeing is sa dull-witted and boring as the villian we watch, It's just not entertaining.

I knew this was a clunker from the first scene when "Texan" Richard Speck wearing what else but a cowboy hat steals his neighbors car and is chased on foot by a woman calling his name. This is the poorest character/location establishment I've seen outside an elementary school production.

Other lowpoints (or lowerpoints I should say) are the sole survivor Filipina nurse who confronts Speck in court. Here's a woman the viewer might want to empathise with, but not so. The actresses performance couldn't be crappier or more unbelievable had it been on Lifetime channel.
Locations are often poor. The crime scene could have used a few extras playing cops, as the only people who seem to be at the "crime of the century" are a very poorly portrayed detective and assistant. There are some anachronistic haircuts and speech as well, something that makes me think this was grinded out in a few weeks by a group of filmakers who lost interst (or money) before the project began.

Richard Speck was a dull man who became famous by a horrible act. "Chicago Massacre" is a dull and horrible video that will never be famous.

With a true crime story you would think the goal is to show what happened and to try and explain why it happened. The standard for such endeavors would be films like "In Cold Blood" and mini-series such as "Helter Skelter." There will be inevitable questions about how much you actually show and whether the explanations will prove at all satisfactory. "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck" is about the murder of the eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966, which happens to be the first headline crime that I remember after the assassination of JFK. Way back then I was unaware of the story of Ed Gein or the way everything would seem to change after the Manson murders, and long before Michael Meyers) upped the ante in teh cinematic world of splatter flicks. After watching this direct-to-video 2007 film I know a bit more about the murders and the murderer, but not enough in either regard to have a better understanding, assuming, of course, such a thing is possible in such a case.

This film tries to weave together three time lines with the murders, the aftermath involving the investigation and Speck's conviction, and Speck's early life. Just playing with the chronology takes away from the sense of "Chicago Massacre" documenting a true crime story, but what we see does not really follow the murders laid out by the prosecution at the trial. Speck stabbed and strangled his victims to death, with seven of the women found dead in their beds, but the movie shows him using a gun to shoot one woman in a bathtub (Speck did have a gun, but used it to control the women). Writer-director Michael Feifer ("Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield") focuses much more on the eyes of the victims than the blood, so you get more of an impression of the murders than any graphic details. How Speck (Corin Nemec) is eventually captured and convicted is the most historically accurate parts of the film, but seems secondary to the depiction of the killings and it is their muddled depiction that stands out in your mind.

Even less successful is the effort to try and explain why Speck became a killer. The scenes from his past do not come together to create anything close to a psychological profile that would constitute such an explanation. Speck had been arrested previously for burglary and stabbing, as well as having been a suspect in a rape, a beating death, the disappearance of three women, and the murders of four other women. I do not know the specifics, so it could be just a case of Speck become a suspect for every unsolved crime with any similarity to what happened in Chicago after he was caught. Still, the question of whether the murder of the student nurses was the culmination of his career as a serial killer or more of a massive one-time explosion would strike me as being pertinent. However, that is not part of Feifer's agenda and is probably too lofty a goal for a low-budget movie filmed in just 10 days.

Connecting the dots to form a coherent picture becomes infinitely more difficult when you take into account the bizarre video of Speck in prison, recreated in the film, sporting female-like breasts grown from smuggled hormones and boasting, "If they only knew how much fun I was having, they'd turn me loose." The quote appears at the start of the film, out of context, and then again at the end, I think the line is privileged as explaining Speck, when it does no such thing. The incongruity of seeing Speck on that video, snorting cocaine and parading around in women's panties, as the man who raped and slaughtered these young women as depicted in this film, is simply too great despite a valiant effort by Nemec. When this film ends all you can do is dismiss Speck as a freak and flush him from your mind, wishing that this film had made his victims more memorable (and not so nameless). It may just be that no matter how great of a number you multiply by zero, in the end all you get is zero.

I watched part of this movie the other night. I just couldn't finish the whole thing. And I am not talking about the subject. I know the Richard Speck story and how he slaughtered 8 student nurses in 1966. It just did not come together like it could have. I thought the acting was good but the film is terribly made.

The Asian girl who survived by hiding under a bed really did get out of the witness chair and walk over to Speck, point and say he was the man who killed her roommates. The film makers show this moment, but on film, or at least this film, it didn't pack the punch it could have.

The film was dark, bizarre and boring. If you want to learn about Richard Speck and the student nurses he murdered, watch a good documentary or read a good article.

It would be cruel to bad mouth the acting in this low budget abomination, but how can I be cruel when there really wasn't an actor on camera? Corin Nemec should take up dock work...working at the docks. This attempt to bring life to a deadly true story makes me wonder. Was there ever a good movie made about this horrific crime? If so, please let me know. The music was overpowering and the whimpering girls were way overdone. Granted, I'd be scared witless too if this maniac was on the loose, but the script, acting, editing and screenplay was embarrassing. If you want to watch this, don't pay $3.99 for a rental...you can probably pick it up at the 99 Cent Only store for (that's right)...99 cents. Even then you got ripped off. You'd be better off watching an episode of "Cops" on cable.

Don't be fooled about other reviews! This movie has enough facts in this documentation to hold it to the original true crime itself. i've read three books on the subject of richard speck and i found this movie a breath of fresh air. it potrays the history of speck and his murders down to a tee. i must admit there are some things that were changed but not too much to be noticed if you are a true reader of this subject. i think you will be very much pleased with this movie like i was. i read the other reviews and was almost convinced that i wouldn't find this movie to be accurate enough. it was and i will watch this movie in satisfaction to the fact that this movie stands on its own as a true documentation of the exact events and leaves the viewer wanting more. so turn on your tv, put in your dvd, and see in its own vision the story of richard speck!!!

Scott M. Cook Initial post This has to be the worst movie I have ever seen. Poor picture quality and second rate actors. Michael feifer had an opportunity to create a good picture but half fast the whole process and created trash. He fails in many ways to tell the whole story. Don't waste your money buying this or even renting this. Aug 20, 2007 6:33 PM PDT

I caught "The Chicago Massacre" Richard Speck" on fearnet the other night. It's hard to believe that a movie could do a worse job of retelling the Richard Speck story than this one does. First of all, I should preface this review by stating that I really do not consider serial killer movies to be horror movies in the first place. To me, these are crime movies belonging to the crime genre, and are therefore distinct from horror movies much the same way mystery, suspense and thriller movies should also be distinguished as well. This does not mean that there are not horror elements to these movies, but they, with very few exceptions, just do not work very well as horror movies.

Richard Speck was a very interesting and truly sickening mass murderer who brutally assaulted nine (9) nursing students eventually killing eight (8) of them in a dormitory in Chicago during the 1960s. While the story of Richard Speck is remarkable, the movie itself is disjointed, poorly acted overall, and horribly executed. Perhaps one of the most glaring weaknesses of "The Chicago Massacre" is its reliance on flashback scenes as well a lot of completely unnecessary and boring scenes which serve as nothing but filler-space accomplishing absolutely nothing, all of which reflect a very poorly organized movie sorely lacking in structure, cohesiveness, style and spirit. Indeed, it appears that the creators of this movie just did not know how to make this story into a movie. The script was simply awful.

Aside from the fact that movies like this belong to the crime genre, I am not sure why anyone would classify "The Chicago Massacre" as a horror movie anyway as it is simply not scary in the slightest. The acts committed by Speck are despicable, horrible, and quite disturbing. However, this movie's depiction of those events reflects a very poor effort on the parts of the creators of this flick to tell the Richard Speck story which results in a completely ineffective movie no matter how you characterize it.

For those who are interested in the true crime genre, I recommend "The Deliberate Stranger" (a great movie on Ted Bundy, much better than "Ted Bundy", "Fatal Vision" (another great movie about the Jeffery MacDonald story-non-serial killer), "Murder in Texas" (non-serial killer) and "Murder Ordained" (non-serial killer). Also, if interested, other serial killer movies which are dubiously effective and sometimes inaccurate are "Henry" (an inaccurate account of the serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas, and his buddy, Ottis Elwood Toole), "Gacy", "Dahmer", "Ed Gein", and the aforementioned "Ted Bundy". I believe there may also be another Ed Gein movie out there, and I am sure there are other serial killer movies not mentioned herein.

P.S. I wish I could find a movie on the South Carolina serial killer, Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins, but to my knowledge, no such movies exists. If anyone knows of one, I would greatly appreciate it if you would drop me a line in the comments section. Thanks, HorrorMan.

Chicago Massacre is Corin Nemec at his best ever!!! He played the nut so naturally and down to earth with the least bit of effort. He played it so well that you actually believe he is really nuts and he will scare you to the pit of your stomach acting or not acting. Corin is one of the finest actors around after showing us how well he can play a psychotic rapist and murderer in this flick. Honestly no other actor could have pulled off this role the way he did with such natural talent. Corin Rocks All The Way! I watch this nearly every night!!! You go, Corin!