The Alphabet Killer (2008)

With no originality at all and plenty of bad things in its core, "The Alphabet Killer" comes to ruin what could be a good story about the real events surrounding the alphabet killer, a psychopath that kidnapped and killed several girls whose initial letters were the same and he never got caught by the police.

Eliza Dushku plays an detective working on the case, trying to discover who this guy is and trying to recover her own sanity after seeing strange hallucinations and visions of the victims while investigating the case. She gets some help from Timothy Hutton's character, a paraplegic psychologist and from another detective; and doesn't get along with her ex-boyfriend (Cary Elwes) who also covers the case.

So, the movie is more about her traumatic and ridiculous moments than to save lives or catch a killer. The director and writers didn't know how to built a suspense and sustain a mystery, everything is so slow and they didn't know how to scare the audience (although the final revelation of who the killer was is so predictable that you might laugh or say that is unbelievably bad). It's not just that that ruins the film, it is also the twisted moments that Dushku has and we're forced to watch being the worst the scene where she escapes from the hospital where she was held, breaking the arm of a nurse even though she already dominated him, and he couldn't do anything with her. That scene is pathetic, also the scenes with her delusions and the "music in her ears" in the church scene.

"The Alphabet Killer" is filled with bad acting, a story with no involvement, no thrill, nothing. Dushku and Elwes are terrible, what a bomb! What happened to Elwes eyebrow? He looked like a old female witch; and Dushku had the guts to produce something like this. The surprising good acting in this thing comes from Melissa Leo and Martin Donovan playing the parents of the Walsh girl, one of the victims; Jack McGee has some good moments and Timothy Hutton is there for reasons of embarrassment and those things can happen with a previous Oscar winner.

Movies inspired in real events usually are good and I enjoy it, but this one is a almost supernatural dramatic flick who has nothing good in it, a waste of time. Pathetic! 2/10

Fmovies: This crime thriller centers on a detective named Megan (Eliza Dushku) who investigates a series of child murders in upstate New York. But Megan suffers from a mental illness, the symptoms of which get worse as she delves deeper into the killings. She hears strange voices and sees "visions" related to the victims.

With low light levels and muted colors, combined with creepy background music, the film's first half creates an effective thriller atmosphere. We see the outline of the killer, but never the face. Will Megan solve the murders and overcome her illness, or will the inept police supersede, to botch the case? As viewers, we root for Megan to succeed.

Although the script idea originates from a real-life murder case, referred to generally as the "double initial" serial killings, which terrorized upstate New York in the early 1970s, the film's overall plot and main characters are fictional. The story setting is the present, not the 1970s. The scriptwriter created the Megan character out of thin air. And the story's outcome deviates considerably from the outcome of the real-life case. The film's writer wrote a fictional plot, based on a real-life premise. The film's second half fails to convince, largely because of its clichéd plot contrivances.

Visuals consist of an annoying widescreen projection and some hokey CGI effects, in the form of "ghosts". But the low lighting contributes tension, as does some clever low-angle camera shots. And the director relies mostly on a hand-held camera, which enhances realism. Overall casting and acting are fine.

"The Alphabet Killer" gets off to a great start. But it falters in the second half, owing to fictional plot points that dilute the underlying real-life premise. I would have preferred a narrative that followed the true story, though I understand that the reason for not doing so was budget constraints. By lowering one's expectations, the viewer may find the film worthwhile, either as a fictional thriller or as a character study of a woman fighting her own demons.

An interesting premise of a Detective going insane while investigating a case is so ineptly handled here as to become irrelevant. It relies only on hand twitching and neck bending with a hallucination of pasty face corpses walking around.

After TV shows like CSI and Dexter there is no excuse for this bland, dull, and un-stylish movie. It cannot rise above anything more than a well below average excuse for a serial killer story that is as uninteresting as a serial killer story could possibly be. In fact, the whole process of filmmaking is so lacking in creativity it is criminal.

There is nothing to recommend except that it is a notch above awful, and oh yes, shaky camera fans can rejoice, because here we go again, but at least the lead actress doesn't mumble.

The Alphabet Killer fmovies. Saw the rating of 6/10 on here and decided to give this a try. Bad mistake!

I thought this was the worst serial killer movie I have ever seen. You know it's a bad sign when the serial killer seems more sane than the lead character.

The lead character was not very bright nor likable, and I spent most of the movie hoping for her demise.

Just because it's loosely based off a real life event does not mean it should become a movie.

I would NOT recommend this movie at all.

Detective Megan Paige (Eliza Dushku) is tracking down a serial killer who finds girls with twin initials and dumps them in a city with the same beginning letter (such as Kelly Kapowski in Kingston). But when she gets too attached to the case, she suffers a mental breakdown. When the killings continue, can she overcome her problems to stop him from striking again?

I thought the film would be a pretty decent one... the concept was interesting, even if the movie strays quite a bit from the real events this was based on. And the cast is impressive. Dushku is pretty amazing, Cary Elwes is one of my all-time favorite actors, Timothy Hutton is here, Michael Ironside, and genre fave Bill Moseley. So you can't beat this ensemble cast.

But sadly, it just didn't add up for me. It was predictable (even the "twist" seemed obvious from early on) and not as engaging as one might think. It wasn't even as good as another recent murder / detective story I reviewed, "Anamorph" (which was itself not all that amazing). I've been a fan of Rob Schmidt's work, especially "Right to Die" and thought he'd be a good person to bring a dark angle to this story. Sadly, not so much... clichés such as a child-obsessed priest appear, and some (presumably imaginary) ghosts that don't really add to the film.

I wouldn't say not to watch this one, but it wasn't gripping. There isn't one thing I can pinpoint as making this film stand out -- not the music, the lighting, the effects... it was all pretty standard. It almost would have been more fitting for a Lifetime movie. As far as serial killers go, this one comes off as remarkably tame. If you want your psyche thrilled, look somewhere else.

I like films about killers, especially those with an interesting little story or something that makes them a bit different. The Alphabet Killer doesn't disappoint in this respect.

I'll admit, the start was pretty poor, I felt it was quite disjointed and it seemed as though a lot of scenes that should have been there to develop the plot were on the cutting-room floor. However, once we get into the middle and latter stages of the film, we definitely see a marked improvement.

I think Eliza Dushku played her role well in this, and I felt the slant of Megan's mental illness playing such a large part in the story made her character more believable, and added interest to the film.

Overall, this was a nicely put together film. It had little gore or anything really adult-themed, so if that's what you're after this isn't for you. If you want a killer movie portrayed more through the eyes of the main detective than is usual, you might like this. Yeah, you'll probably suss it out, but that's half the fun.