Serial Killing 4 Dummys (Serial Killing 101) (2004)

1010101This is just one of those movies that are so bad, they’re just damn good. The quality, filming locations, bad acting, and nonsensical story all pretty much made for a film that shouldn’t be taken too seriously by the audience and should be approached with an open mind. It’s pretty obvious that the makers attempted to make a real slasher, but then, halfway, decided to just make a satire, which is why this has two movie syndrome, where one half of the film feels so different from the second half. What starts off feeling like another slasher film inevitably becomes a cheesy, campy, dark comedy about killing.

I wanted to despise this movie, but there were just certain aspect of the movie that I couldn’t help like. The film has its head in the right place as it tries to examine teenager’s fascination with killing, and had this been done right, this could have been one excellent dark comedy that made a true statement, but its basically just set at the level of where it stands: straight to video. Other than that, there are some gags in the second hilarious half that I couldn’t help laugh at. There’s that utterly dumb-ass guidance counselor played by Rick Overton attempting to be so hip and modern who was such an overused, obvious gauge to make the audience laugh, but shockingly, it worked for me, and whenever he’d talk to the lead saying “I know you’re trying to diss me”, which was so stupid, but just made me laugh because of Overton’s delivery. Otherwise, a few of the other gags really managed to work in the hilariously ridiculous sense.

When Carter is trying to make a first kill, so he decides to kill a dog and it turns out being adorable, and then trying to kill an elderly woman and she introduces him as her grandson and he’s forced to go in to the nursing home put on an act. Priceless, and that chase scene in the end where the dumb ass Casey hides in the gym at the top of the climbing rope to be so easily discovered by the killer was funny! “You dumb ass, did you not think I’d be able to find you at the top of a rope in the middle of an open gymnasium?” That just made me laugh out loud because it’s a common lapse of logic used in horror that was addressed here. The climax where we find out who or whom the serial killer is, it’s just such a hilarious chase scene and face off. Regardless, had this been properly constructed, this could have achieved a much higher rating than it received.

The movie reverts back and forth from wanna-be horror/slasher, to wanna-be satirical dark comedy, and it never achieves either status even remotely successfully, and only becomes a very uneven clunker of a movie, and utter exercise in stupidity. Now, I should be kinder since it’s relatively, and disturbingly obvious this is low-budget, and badly under- budget, but I won’t be, because this is many times an utter piece of crap, and much of the ill-conceived production is representative by the casting choices. There’s Thomas Haden Church hilariously slumming it and over-doing it in the acting department to the point where he’d make R. Lee Ermy call him a jack ass, and then there’s Lisa Loeb who plays a high  schooler. Lisa Loeb is a high schooler. Lisa Loeb, who’s at least in her early thirties. And we’re really supposed to buy this?

It was basically distracting and hilarious. She doesn’t look middle-aged, but I’m perfectly aware of her age and it was a ridiculous casting choice, almost as ridiculous as casting Jaime Pressley as a college student in “Piñata: Death Island”. Not to mention she’s such a cliché Goth with the Marilyn Manson shirt, and stuff like that it becomes even funnier. If you don’t know who Lisa Loeb is, read another review, but it’s funny. This is not a slasher film, this is a film about two disgruntled emo kids who want to die and want to be murderers while, as a subplot, someone is sneaking around, and…. basically doing nothing. This desperately attempts to be a satirizing of young teens’ fascination with murder and death, when really it’s often just too absurd to even attempt to be clever.

Like every low budget fare, this has padding, padding, padding, and padding, and we don’t see killing until an hour into the film until someone is killed by choking on a doll. The mystery killer of this faux whodunnit is so stupid and cheesy, and of course, the killer who is revealed murders everyone quickly, but stalls at killing the heroine which gives the hero just enough time to break out the female love interest for a big chase scene. Meanwhile he has a very elaborate slow death to pit against the heroine while the same old cheesy chase and kill scene closes the film. Meanwhile as the fourth rate rock score beams and drones throughout the entirety of the basic broad characterization and set-up of people we never really get a chance to give a crap about, the lead character Casey is boring and bland while he has a mom whose basically only about ten years old than he is? Who cast this movie? A blind monkey?

And of course the killer is being chased by some eighty year old detective. I mean whose grandfather did they hire to play the detective? The poor guy looked like he didn’t even know where he was, so how can he look for the mysterious killer who becomes about as obvious as the nose on our faces, and outwit a teenager at the same time? His usefulness is pretty much summed up in the climax where the detective attempts to catch the killer without any explanation on how he got there, or what led him there. The movie is such a clunky, far-fetched, and utterly ridiculous horror comedy that constantly teeters from comedy to horror never sure what to really do with the script, if there is one at all. I started off hating this, but as it went on it was clear what the makers were heading towards film-wise. This movie is so bad, it’s good, and the stupid stuff like bad acting, padding, and ridiculous subplots that we have to endure, are more than made up for with the hilarious climax. Keep an open mind.