Customer Reviews

Nightstalker

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

NIGHTSTALKER doesn't follow the Richard Ramirez serial killer facts too closely. But that's not what this film is about.

This is history told as a horror film. Indeed, as a religious parable.

We see Ramirez's killings through his own eyes. He stalks and kills his victims while an albino Satan with a blood-stained mouth flashes about him, head shaking quickly. Ramirez himself flashes about the scene. It's a series of killings seen through the eyes of an insane drug addict. It sets the mood of Evil. It works.

(Although the fast head shaking was first used in JACOB'S LADDER, it may be that this film's albino Satan later inspired THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.)

Evil is the theme, to the point of religious parable. Ramirez not only sees Satan, he orders his victims, "Say you love Satan!" He tells Satan, "I did it for you!" Naturally, his apartment abounds in upturned pentagrams, written in blood.

Ramirez's nemesis is Rosalyn Sanchez, who plays an East L.A. cop--who's also a devout Catholic. She prays fervently every night, the camera hovering in extreme closeup about her quivering lips, her tightly clutched rosary, focusing in and out at the aged crucifix she prays before.

Sanchez (Detective Martinez) is surrounded by encroaching evil. Her black police lieutenant boss sexually harasses her. His head shakes quickly (as does Satan's head), thus linking him to Evil. Sanchez's Latino partner snorts coke in the squad car, his head shaking quickly. Sanchez's white partner turns vigilante, his head shaking quickly. The Evil is everywhere, in all races.

All three men behave in a mostly decent (if roughshod) manner throughout the film. None of their indiscretions are followed up plotwise. Rather, the Evil just lurks there, surfacing on occasion, but always beneath the surface of those Sanchez might trust.

The Evil lurks in women too. Sanchez is betrayed by a gal reporter, who uses Sanchez as a source, then breaks confidence, exposing Sanchez as her source. Sanchez had given a police sketch of Ramirez to the reporter, hoping it would save lives. Sanchez's motives were pure, but the reporter didn't care about saving lives, only making a name for herself; exposing Sanchez saved no one, but made the story juicier. The reporter also snorts coke, her head shaking quickly.

Sanchez has other problems. Her aging mother is senile, a burden on Sanchez, who's turned down better job offers to stay in East L.A. and care for her mother. These problems are additional crosses for Sanchez to bear as she prays to Jesus.

The Evil is everywhere. The film is set in 1985, and TV sets throughout the film carry newscasts of crises in the Mideast, the poison plant leakage in India, US support of Iraq, and the Ramirez killings.

No, this is not a "true crime" film. It's shot in the aesthetic style of a horror film, and it's about a devoutly Catholic woman seeking divine help in her fight against Evil. Sanchez is the moral core of this darkening universe as Evil encroaches on her from all directions.

I can see that many true crime fans were disappointed. I don't think horror fans would be upset. The cinematography is beautiful. (And yes, so is Sanchez.)

This movie is based on a True Story<<--i used capitol letters, wow. However, it is not from the real world that i know of and really is a "slasher" with three conflicting tones or more like formulas, maybe even four: the brutal realism of a docudrama, the "slasher" horror flick, feminist pic a la "silence of the lambs" and then fourth, even a thriller. All have loose ends.


Roselyn Sanchez and Frank Luis both competently play partners in the LAPD who arrive at the first murder scene where a victims eyeball was taken out found by Sanchez in the fridge. Then their dialogue suspiciously seemed a bit too light to the whole situation--Luis decides to one-up a homicide detective in his own way as they leave the scene and they seem to want to just get some donuts afterwards. Then they arrive at more crimes and even Sanchez religious mother seems to have been saved by her godly aura from the killer as he breaks in her house. Meanwhile, in between barfing at crime scenes, Sanchez at first seems to have a knack for catching homicidal killers. Then, of course having little to no reaction AGAIN as she did at first crime scene, she does nothing at numerous inappropriately sexist advances during her new "promotion" to homicide. She does nothing apparently because she may get fired.


Surprisingly, all these things i pointed out are the only good things in this movie and would have worked if it werent for this director trying to add in all these other tones. All these things would be okay if this were a docudrama. We learn nothing about Richard Ramirez except that he hides his face with his long hair and needs streetwise prostitutes for company before saying never mind and killing and raping them and everyone else that seems more helpless. All these things are intercut with the killer's perspective as he kills and kills and kills hiding his face from anyone who looks at it, yes, even his victims are not allowed to look which is why they say her eyes were cut out at the first scene.


I should have known immediately, as another Amazon review pointed out, that the music the killer listens to is modern satanic rock that couldnt have existed at his time. That should have immediately told me that this film is lacking in its realistic docudrama portrayal. And everytime we see him we also see flashes of a devil demonic guy that jumps around like well, a modern satanic rocker would with vampire teeth and white painted skin. This is supposed to show us the killer's mindset which we find out is more of a satanic ritual--he paints things like devil and pentagrams in blood at various murders.


So, the movie turns into a "slasher" after all. The movie portrays Richard Ramirez as some plot marker just like everyone else in the movie. Sanchez is religious at home, but lets her partner sniff coke while in police car with her. Then being chased by an imaginary killer(slashers do that, uh, oh, its a cat), and then the actual killer. She also allows herself to be sexually harassed numerous times just so she can stay as homicide detective to catch the killer and oh, yea, its personal because her mother was almost killed and now she is almost killed after all that.

I am a true crime/serial killer fanatic. I have not once been able to find a serial killer movie that can portray them correctly. The ending is completely wrong. Ramirez was chased down by a guy after attempting to steal a car.

Being a true crime fanatic, i was very much looking forward to this film. I suffered the entire length of this movie and could not have been more disappointed.

Firstly, on the back of the DVD, it refers to the killer as 'robert ramirez' not Richard Ramirez. That alone should have prepared me for the levels of authenticity! it is packed to the gills with fiction and the directors/producers/screen writers should have their fingers removed.

who ever called "gigli" as the worst movie ever made had obviously never seen this steaming pile of CRAP!

This movie makes Paul W. S. Anderson and Uwe Boll look talented, and their flicks appear enjoyable. Unbelievably, Fisher's "Nightstalker" 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 fondle a flour-covered "vampire" weirdo, whom Fisher, with his apparent 12-year-old mentality, intended to be 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 "nu-metalhead", fresh after drinking a sixpack of beer and viewing "House of 1000 Corpses" with his Limp Korn Zombie tape playing right into his ears. In fact, said metalhead would probably write and direct a better movie than Fisher's one (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 "Nu 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 doomed personal religious project ("Battlefield Earth", that is). 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".

Bad acting, bad Sfx, bad directing.It's like the director learns how to film at the same time he was filming using the same camera effects... The SFX are not bad but used too many times so with the very noisy atmosphere they tried to create, it's finally very annoying ! About the Death Metal score, I guess it must be annoying for those who hates this music... And even if Ramirez was listening Metal, it wasn't Death Metal either but more like Iron Maiden,Acdc.. Death Metal and especially the one in the movie, didn't exist in the 80's or at least not in this style ! I am also not very sure the story is accurate to the true events. The end sounds a bit too much, with many improbabilities. Very average movie in my opinion. The actor who incarnates the killer looks much like the real one>

I bought this video thinking I would be more enlightened with the story behind serial killer Richard Ramirez but what I got was a film overloaded with loud gothic music and too much speed frame effects that gave me a headache. The story itself was not much of the killer but of the rookie cop who pursued him. Even the story of the rookie cop was weak. Take my advice...just read the book solely about Richard Ramirez and dump the film. Poor directing and cinematography which wasted the actors talents.

Out of the serial killer movies, this one has to be the worst by far. First, we don't even get to know who the "Nightstalker" really was. He is only shown when he attacks. We know nothing about his life or his upbringing. He hardly even speaks in the movie. Also what was VERY distracting from the beginning, is the camera would shake real fast throughout the movie. It made me very seasick and I wanted to turn it off. I guess it tried to be all "artsy" and show what it's like to be intoxicated on drugs. It was just annoying. My friend lent me his copy. I'm just glad I didn't have to pay for this.

Horrible, horrible and horrible. This was the worst version of any "truelife" crime movie I have ever seen. What were the directors thinking with all the jumping scences. The story was more focused on the 2 investigating police detectives than the Nightstalker himself. Furthermore, after reading several serial killer articles, books etc, this movie was only about 50% accurate. Don't waste your money.

this might be the worst movie i have ever seen. almost everything is shown in really fast motion and people randomly have these head-spasms like the exorcist. everyone seems to be on crack or cocaine, even the police. the parts that arent at a super-fast speed are incredibly boring. also, this is not scary, not even one bit. and i scare easily. this was too stupid to be scary.