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A
young Hispanic LAPD cop is called to a house where nothing
has been recently seen of the occupier, only to witness the
aftermath of a brutal killing. There are blood pentagrams
on the walls, and Satan-related messages. When the killer
strikes again the cop is asked to join the team of homicide
detectives investigating the case (pretty unlikely, I'd say).
When she leaks a witness's police sketch of the killer to
a reporter, she puts both their lives in danger. The killer
is now looking for them, and he knows just where to find them...
Night
Stalker is a difficult one to call. I can understand writer
and director Chris Fisher's intentions here, but does the
finished product actually work? Yes and no. It makes its statement,
I suppose, but achieves very little impact. The sad fact is
I simply didn't care about anything that was happening on
screen.
The
killer's drug-induced psychosis drives his will to kill, influenced
by his belief that he is possessed by a demon. We see the
viscous white ghoul sometimes completely separate and occasionally
joined by the back or head. All this time we hear the incoherent
murmurs of the demon (presumably in the Stalker's head) giving
his incessant instructions. To display the fact that the killer
is constantly high on drugs we get fast moving images and
lots of quick cuts back and forth. These sequences are used
far too often and prove extremely irritating.
The
sound quality is curiously poor. In many scenes dialogue is
lost to traffic or aircraft noise, and sometimes the overemphasised
music soundtrack. In short, this could be an episode of any
late night cop thriller series. It's the kind of thing American
audiences are seeing every day, and UK viewers almost as often.
I
do like some serial killer crime fiction, particularly if
the plot strands are strong and induce us to work on our logic
and reasoning skills for the end result. With Night Stalker
there's no thinking required, and very little makes it stand
out from the crowd.
Ty
Power
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