The Rockville Slayer (2004)

Background: The story, as usual, here is with the actors. Among them are, notably, Robert Z'Dar and Joe Estevez. the word "notably" might sound a little suspect, as most of the world doesn't know who the hell those people are. Sure, one could guess that Joe Estevez is releated to Emilio Estevez and Martin and Charlie Sheen, and they'd be right, but why care about the weird uncle? And just looking at a picture of Robert Z'Dar is enough to confuse most people. Both, however, are staggeringly prolific. Z'Dar has appeared in at least one movie per year since 1984, twenty five straight years. His total is quickly approaching 100 films made. That's nothing compared to Estevez though. He's been in well over 150 movies.

If you know these names, chances are you know them from Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3K was dedicated to movies like the ones these guys cranked out. Joe Estevez was in the classic Werewolf, Z'dar in the truly terrible Future War and they both appeared together in Soultaker. All of these episodes of MST3K are available on Netflix, and I can't recommend them enough. Especially Werewolf because that has a great song in one of the interstitial scenes. 

Going into this, I know it's a slasher flick. I'm writing this before I've actually watched the movie, and if I had to guess, Z'dar is the killer.

Plot: The movie gets off to a pretty bland start from the get go. Stock footage of a small town runs under the opening credits (for some reason, the credits are in the Papyrus font). After that we cut to the two stars of the football team about to stick it to two cheerleaders. They're parked in their cars, close to the local insane asylum (yep). The two couples talk back and forth on walkie talkies, competing to have sex first, I guess. They get murdered. Duh.

A sexy lady detective and her bland partner comes in to assist the local sheriffs, Joe Estevez and a younger guy. The young sheriff is the brother of one of the victims. They talk about the murders, and also about a patient that escaped the looney bin. One of the kids it turns out wasn't quite murdered enough and he wakes up just in time to spit blood on Sexy Detective.

The escapee is a young girl, an older sister of one of the victims. Sexy Detective and her partner find her covered in blood in her hospital gown. They take her in, Sexy Detective leaves her alone with her partner, partner is murdered. Girl did it, case closed, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Sexy Detective doesn't buy it, and neither does the viewer. The survivor claims he did it, but no one believes that either. Then he kills himself for some reason.

Young Sheriff's father cheated on his wife, she got pregnant, kid turned out to be Young Sheriff. I summarized that in one sentence. It takes most of the movie to tell this in the story. Z'dar shows up in the final 20 minutes and he is having a blast in this movie. When he was on screen was the only time I had fun with this movie. I don't want to give any spoilers though about who the real killer was.

Why Was It Forgotten? This movie is a throwback to a bygone era of horror flicks. The deliberate pacing and (attempted) spooky atmosphere harken back to the early days of the genre. It even opens with teens breaking Scream's rules of the genre (and are appropriately murdered). The horror genre these days is all about jump scares, but there are really only a few in the movie. Typically, throwbacks of this ilk are campy or try to blend genres. This one, however, plays it straight.

The scenes that roll over the opening credits are very pretty. Well shot, good depths of field effects just some good shooting. I bring this up because the rest of the movie looks like garbage. The shots are rarely in focus and the lighting is as dull as lighting can be. The sound quality matches the visual quality to boot.  Watching this movie  practically requires to to jockey the volume knob between the way too quiet dialogue and the way too loud screaming. All this leads to watching the movie becoming a chore. I found myself anticipating the louder parts and turning the volume now in advance, often guessing wrong and having to turn it back up.

What Went Right? Joe Estevez clearly outclasses all of the rest of the actors. Though ol' Joe has never reached the fame levels of his kin, he is not without his talents. It's just unfortunate that his muted tones are barely audible throughout the movie. It also puts the rest of the cast into stark relief. Particularly the teens in the beginning, those guys were the worst. Other than that... well not too much went right. The tone is way to serious, the entire movie shows way too much restraint. Those are my two least favorite qualities in a horror movie.

Verdict: I was lying about the spoilers. Z'dar was the killer.

Score: 10%