Customer Reviews

Gacy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Okay, so the one thing I've noticed from previous reviewers is that they were all looking for the same thing from this film: a deeper glimpse inside Gacy. But that concept has been so played in films about serial killers. In fact, it's been played twice--quite adequately, in fact--with respect to Gacy himself.

I think this film attempts to do the reverse. To look at how the community reacts while all these murders are going on right on their doorstep. This movie is different. It's a parody, complete with almost "Texas-Chainsaw" gore for effect, to show how Gacy was able, for years, to rape and kill marginalized young men right under the noses of his "unsuspecting" neighbors. It also has a darkly comic undertone to it. Just watch this movie and think about how many people come and go from his house and how many people complain of the smell, all the while, 29 bodies rotting in the basement. I almost found myself rooting for Gacy against the idiotic neighborhood.

Forget Gacy. This movie is aimed at us, and I think it does a pretty damned good job.

I know the John Wayne Gacy story, I live in Chicago, how could I not???
But where are we in this movie? The scenes follow no order and give the audience no clue as to where we are in his life at any given point in the movie. Not only that, but most of the scenes seem to "cut off" too early as if they were edited for TV to fill a time-slot. The whole thing is one big confusing mess.

That being said, the portrayal of Gacy by Mark Houlton was really good. He looks like him physically and pulls off friendly, yet scary appearance very well. He makes this movie worth watching. THe one thing that the writers/directors did well in this was to not get psychological. They simply portray what was actually done, without trying to explain WHY Gacy killed people. He was a serial killer, nobody knows what he was thinking... THe movie succeeded in staying very objective.

Worth watching on a rainy day.

P.S. NOt really much discussed about POGO the clown, even though it's on the cover.

This movie is a virtual candyland of missed opportunities. first, like a lot of serial killer movies, it's structured almost as a series of episodic vignettes, which is okay, but here they don't flow together all that well (here's gacy digging in the crawlspace...now he's wrestling with young boys...now he's cruising the streets, etc). the filmmakers didn't seem to realize that there was an actual straightforward story here. second, and most heinous, is that a lot of what's presented is just flat-out WRONG! Whole chunks of the Gacy story are, for no good reason, left out--chunks that would've made the film much better, such as his back story, his civic & political activitism. the events leading to his arrest are wholly inaccurate, too. (and what was the deal with the two sleazy detectives, anyway? they look like they wandered onto the set from the David Lynch movie shooting on the next lot over.) in the end, Gacy drives away, the bodies are found, we see Gacy in jail, and...the movie ends!! no trial, no outraged neighbors, none of Gacy's bogus "Jack Handley" defense, no gas chamber, nada. In short, they cut out anything that might have made this a dramatically compelling film. A much MUCH better movie about the Gacy case is TO CATCH A KILLER, with Brian Dennehy playing Gacy.
The only reason to see this movie is the amazing performance by Mark Holton as Gacy. i was skeptical going in; I figured I'd be thinking of him as francis from Pee-wee's Big Adventure the whole time, but he actually does a stunning job. why isn't this guy working more anyway?

Gacy was a disturbing movie to watch. It's about a guy who does the worst things imaginable to teenage boys. Eventually the bugs and the smell gets so bad... yeah it's the kind of storyline that will make you think, and will make you sick.

The movie moves along at a pace that's almost too realistic. The guy who was going around doing those horrible things to the boys had serious problems in his head because of his father beating and sexually abusing him as a child.

Eventually the cops get suspicious, soon after his wife finds out about her husbands sexual preferences by way of magazines he had hidden away (but that's all- she did NOT know about the other bad things he was doing at the time).

The guy had serious mental problems too- people would call him names and he would totally flip out on them. It was incredibly disturbing how many murders he was getting away with and not get caught. It seemed whenever he was ready to committ a murder nobody would be around to catch him in the act.

The movie seemed to focus on the roaches and worms that were crawling around the dead bodies. Why I don't know. Unless the movie directors wanted to focus on how disgusting it is when dead bodies are rotting away. The bodies were stored in his basement.

It was interesting how the guys neighbors, the cops, and other people all noticed an extremely bad smell but didn't realize what was causing it. Also interesting is that the guys wife and mother didn't even notice any smell. Perhaps the writers forgot to include them in the nose-grabbing stink scenes!

I thought the movie was easy to understand, not really confusing, and the story rolled along at a comfortable and understandable pace.

I finally watched this after reading many reviews on how horrible it was. I definately agree about the acting being horrible by most of the actors. I wish the story was more from point A to point B, showing more of a kill by kill storytelling. Instead it was more of a big picture, everything happening all at once, and showing his relationship with neighbors and ppl in his city. But the thing that makes this movie awesome is Mark Holton as Gacy, he is outstanding. He plays such a smart and outgoing person, unlike the normal profile of sick killers being quiet and reserved, and then he flips over an is one of the creepiest and evil characters i've seen. He did such a good job i gave the movie 4 stars for that reason alone, overall the layout of the movie wasn't what i was hoping for. If they ever do something better they need to follow the same outline of the Ted Bundy movie that came out in 2002.

Yup, another entry in the direct-to-video-real life serial killer-slasher film franchise. Once again we have a mediocre slasher/suspense flick who's gimmick is to base it's crimes on a real murderer. Try as it may to be a biopic(though how much of it that's truthful is a mystery to me considering I have only basic knowledge of Gacy, but it can't be too accurate), it can't escape it's exploitation elements. Granted, this one takes a little more of a serious approach to it's subject than Ted Bundy did. It looks and plays out like a demented R-rated Lifetime movie. Holton's very good though.

Typecasting can be fatal to an actor's career, as Mark Holton will forever be known as "Francis Buxton" from "Pee Wee's big Adventure." But in "Gacy," he does step out of that, and he does a decent job at it.

John W. Gacy was a horrible man, raised in a harsh environment by an abusive father. People have tried to blame Gacy's behavior on a head injury but the post-mortem didn't show anything. It could be any number of things, but 29 boys and young men didn't bury themselves in the crawlspace under his house. In the end, police connected him to 33 murders (and there could have been even more), which earned him the death penalty.

In this film, the viewer gets a glimpse of how it was when he was a boy; his relationship(ha)with his father, which really did inflict some psychological scars on him. It then goes into a narration which tells of his prison term, his early release, and his attempt to rebuild his life. No mention of his first marriage or the family which broke up due to his crime, or why he got into being a clown for kids' parties.

There are a lot of frustrating leaps in the storyline, jumping from scene to scene, often with no build-up or release; just a series of seemingly disconected exposition, but one does get a pretty good idea that something is wrong with this situation. Why is there such a foul odor coming from this guy's house? Yes, we see some nasty looking sludge being sump-pumped out of his house, and the neighbors are having a problem with the resultant biohazard which is developing, and his second wife makes a discovery no wife wants to make ("What have I married" reaction).

Understandably, no normal-length film can tell the entire story, there will be omissions, but so much of the Gacy story is left to the imagination, which usually only works in fiction. This is told as a true story, but the writers took many liberties to tell this story, which isn't completely true, as told here. Although the general idea is there.

As far as movies go, "Gacy" isn't necessarily a bad film. It informs those who don't know of him, and frustrates those who know the story.

P.S.

Read the other reviews of this movie, positive and negative. They all have Gacy's name appended to the word ahead of it. There is no space between any word which preceeds Gacy's name and the name itself. I wonder why this is so?

Once in a while I like to be scared by a movie. I remember the true story of mass killer John Wayne Gacy when it hit the papers in the 1970's.

For all of the obvious faults that exist in this film due to budget, or lack thereof (the audio commentary is exquisite in information), Mark Holton as the "clown" killer is downright creepy.The film succeeded in scaring me,and I was tense most of the film.In that, I commend writer/director Clive Saunders for making my $2.00 investment worthwhile. This kind of film is not my usual fare, but Mark Holton is so bizarre as Gacy that his performance excuses the rest of this pretty "on a string" creep-out". Really not that bad all considered.

I went into this movie with some knoledge of John Wayne Gacy and was surprised to see how well protrayed he was, how well the murders were portrayed, and how well the story was portrayed.
A lot of reviewers were not pleased with the movie, but I must say that it was entertaining. Although this is not the movie you go out and buy, it is one worth renting.

I never seen Adventures of Pee Wee Herman so I had no idea who Mark Holton was, so I cannot compair the two thus having a more objective view of the movie. I think he did a great job portraying Gacy. Nobody can fully understand what goes on inside a serial killer's mind so it doesn't try anything in depth in terms of psychological makeup, but attempts to make insights. In the beginning we see Gacy's father as abusive, trying to make his son macho. Perhaps Gacy was not raised in an environment of love, so such human qualities as compassion were not there. He puts on a good front as a cover as being "Mr. Nice Guy" in his community. With so many bodies buried in his property there was some serious stinking going on yet the real life Gacy he had dozens buried in there and still nobody knew.
His neighborhood did not have bright people living there apparently.
I thought the movie was done well. I enjoyed it. It makes you think of all the prostitutes out there they can indeed become prime targets for the loonies and sickos out there. How many people out there got killed and nobody knew because they had no family or anybody who cared about them. Scary thought. It makes you wonder...

I had no idea Gacy's last words were "Kiss my ass" just before lethal injection, and that he picked up approximately 2,000 men.
So just how many more were murdered?