The Alphabet Killer, 2008

I want to say it wasn't lame, but it really was. It's just that Eliza Dushku and Timothy Hutton are cool to watch, so it didn't feel entirely, completely like shit, even though it was.

So, it's based on the Alphabet murders that took place in Rochester, NY, in the early 1970s. Someone was going around killing kids with first and last names that shared the same initial. (Carmen Colon, was one.) He would then dump the girls in towns with that initial. While suspects mounted, no one was ever charged with the murders, and two prime suspects suicided, while, one, Kenneth Bianchi the Hillside Strangler, continues to protest his innocence. The crimes, the initials twist anyway, stopped in 1973.

The basics of the crimes are in this movie, and that's about it. The movie focuses on Megan, a detective on the case who becomes obsessed with finding the killer. So much so that she is haunted by the girls' ghosts, hallucinates, and winds up with adult onset schizophrenia. She loses her job, ends up in therapy (where she meets sage-like paraplegic Timothy Hutton), and is considered insane by everyone at the police station. Still, nothing can stop her from solving this case, so on she progresses, uncovering clue after clue.

Sadly, though, none of her clues get her anywhere and she stumbles upon the killer in this version of events completely by accident. Kind of renders invalid her so-called detective expertise and apparent non-insanity, but still...

It's not the best story. There are plotholes galore, and if you're slightly familiar with police procedure, you'll be shaking your head at what this movie tries to pass off as an actual investigation. The biggest offence is the fake closing of the case by police who shoot an innocent man and then plant cat hair from the crime scenes in his apartment. Did these clever policeman not fear another murder? If they killed the wrong guy and planted evidence in his house, and then another girl was found dead, would that not leave many unanswered questions? Dear, oh dear.

Well, I wasn't totally bored. Bill Mosely showed up, which was fun. As did Michael Ironside, who lifts to watchable even the Z-gradest of trash (like Watchers). And Eliza is just so pretty.

I give it 2 stars out of 5 for tricking me into not thinking the killer was who I knew it should have been all along.