GazerRise Fantastic!

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Draconis Blackthorne Watched this on Decades recently. It comes off as an amateurish college-made production for a film project grade with art project quality. The main theme of the portrayed 'crimes' involves Ramirez roving from one irritating bickering couple to another {except for the airhead on the phone}, thankfully ending their whiny tantrums. One finds oneself eagerly awaiting, even encouraging the next slaying just to make them stop.The primary weapon of choice here is a handgun, with a knife used on a couple of occasions to carve a pentagram on victims' bellies, while Ramirez was actually eclectic, utilizing a variety of murder weapons.The actor appears Mediterranean, and displays the rather vexatious habit of constantly drawing upon a sucker like a pacifier all through the film. He'd more likely be smoking a cigarette, if anything.Ironically, probably one of the most disturbing scenes is the squandering of a perfectly fortuitous opportunity for indulgence with a pair of succulent salacious beauties, perhaps to further establish the character's chaotic disposition.With artistic license taken to the most extensive degree, the plot has little to nothing to do with the actual case, with the vague exception of being beaten by a small mob {although in this case in an alleyway, while on the street in actuality}. The only devil worship angle involves Ramirez psychotically talking to himself, demanding victims say they love Satan, whispering 'demonic voices' throughout, and sharing narcotics with a junky girl in a restroom stall attempting to define Satan through a mind numbed haze.This characterization depicts Ramirez more like a fictional boogeyman likened a Michael Meyers type, which is understandable after all, considering the director also directed the film entitled "The Boogeyman".By far the worst of the docudramas of the genre, with the recent Phillips version as the best so far. ∞

movieman_kev Jesus not another Ulli Lommel 'movie' (takes a long sigh and sucks it up) OK this one is based on the Night Stalker Killer from the 1980's and of course when I say 'based' I mean little to not at all. God, it's Ulli after all.Richard Ramirez goes about the movie killing random people when he's not thinking random gibberish talks that would be at home with any typical Goth poser from junior high. And that's the whole movie folks. There I saved you from the mind-numbing effect of this excrement in celluloid form.What you want more? OK fine it might make the film go faster if you were to drink every time the word Satan is uttered, that or make sure you have one of GOB's forget-me-nots handy.

charlytully And if you check the date of my comment, you will know WHICH headline I'm talking about. If more of the people of Tucson had just taken the time to see this vital film about current American affairs in the year it's been out, it is possible many lives would have been saved. Prescient NIGHT STALKER director Lommel ends his version of "Richard's" killing spree with a gang of 11 male vigilantes permanently disabling him in an alley. Prior to this climax, Lommel portrays Richard with all the classic symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. None of the countless people the movie shows shirking away from Richard on the sidewalk as he mutters away take any steps to refer him to the proper mental health authorities (Richard obviously would come under the Medicaid umbrella; most western states in the U.S. have eliminated their mental health services for Medicaid sufferers in recent years, if they ever had them to begin with). All of this week's endless news reporting estimate there are up to 6.14 MILLION people in the U.S. with Richard and you-know-who's condition. We are told only a "tiny fraction" are able-bodied people who actually commit crimes like Richard's ("at least 16 dead," according to this flick's postscript). However, no one can predict WHICH ONE of these millions will "suddenly snap" next, get a gun, and become the next notorious nut job. But director Lommel bravely posits in NIGHT STALKER that even ONE Richard is one more than a society "protected" by bumbling, namby-pamby law enforcement should tolerate, which is WHY Lommel has the vigilante mob do in Richard simply for muttering on the sidewalk. After all, the mob's collective intelligence realizes that taxes are high enough, and it would literally cost several trillion dollars to construct secure but humane holding facilities for these 6.14 million individuals run by high-priced professionals (at an acceptable staff-patient ratio), as well as to train and pay countless more social workers enough to do a conscientious job of running interference for any Richards released back into society on electronic tethers. After all, mental health demographers are talking about 1 in every 50 Americans. Obviously, given the U.S. economy, the choices are 1)the present system of expecting and accepting an increasing number of serial killers such as Richard and people like this week's mass murderer, 2)bankrupting the U.S. treasury to neutralize the threat humanely, or 3)Lommel's mob justice (which sweeps up and kills dozens who fit the "schizo-in-the-headlines" profile every time one of these tragedies occurs). Option #2 might be accomplished by eliminating the space program, agriculture subsidies, selling the national parks to Disney and other recreation pros, and restricting a down-sized U.S. military to U.S. territory and waters (unless these actually are attacked). Anyone who disagrees ought to at least view Lommel's film, since outsiders sometimes can put their finger's on a society's main problem (and the best solution to it).

Bloomer This is a pretty monotonous and factually inaccurate portrait of Richard Ramirez, a.k.a. The Night Stalker, the serial killer and self-proclaimed Satanist who terrorised Los Angeles and San Francisco in the mid-1980s. It offers little characterisation, next to no story, no suspense and lots of badly executed violence. Most of the short running time is filled with Richard's repetitious bad-beat-poetry voice-over of a soundtrack ('She was my dark Princess. Dark like hell. Darker than night, my Satanic queen, she was so dark..' etc) plus endless close-ups of him sucking suggestively on a lollipop.What the film does have going for it is difference - the style and delivery are significantly unlike those of the majority of straight to DVD horror films. This doesn't save it from being a real chore to sit through, but seems worth commenting on in these times when so many films are bad in exactly the same way as each other.The grainy video cinematography and no-budget location shooting give the film a gritty sense of place. Richard's voice-over seems designed to fill the void where a recording of the outdoor location sound would normally be. It looks like they only bothered to record sound when it wouldn't be blotted out by traffic and the din of the world - i.e. mostly when they were indoors.This is actually a pretty good film for the actors when they are able to snatch any screen time away from Richard and his lollipops. It looks like the performers were allowed to improvise nearly all of their conversations. When this works, it gives the scenes a ring of non-movie reality. Of course when it doesn't, the actors end up riffing the same ideas repeatedly.The Night Stalker was called the Night Stalker because he attacked people at night. Well, he goes in for a lot of daytime attacks in this film. Very few of the crimes match up to the real case history, the scene in which he is apprehended is abysmally directed, you never see how he gets into any of the victims' houses, and there is no real illumination of the man, either real or imaginary. I would have settled for either.I didn't stop watching this film, but I wouldn't recommend that you start. It's also not a good sign that the film's opening and closing credits take up one eighth of the running time ... but then again, the actors in this film did get a very good deal. They got to improvise, and everyone's name was displayed twice.