Murderlust

Mundane study of a Sunday School teacher who strangles young women in his spare time

A disgruntled bachelor in Greater Los Angeles (Eli Rich) hops from job to job while being a faithful churchgoer. He vents his negative energy by preying on females.

Shot on weekends in twelve days, “MurderLust” (1985) wasn’t released to video until 1987. Like the slightly superior “Hitch Hike to Hell” (1977), it’s a prosaic psychological study of a serial killer. That flick used The Co-ed Killer as a template, Edmund Kemper. His victims from 1972-1973 were six female students who happened to be hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, an hour's drive south of San Francisco. The scriptwriter of this movie researched Ten Bundy and the Hillside Stranglers. Bundy’s reign of terror took place from 1974-78 whereas the crimes of The Hillside Stranglers involved a dozen victims between 1977-78.

Besides being reminiscent of the obscure “Hitch Hike to Hell,” the straightforward tone is similar to "Targets" and maybe "The Toolbox Murders." Yet this isn’t a slasher like the latter since the five victims are all strangled, not to mention there’s very little gore. Being a psychological study, the focus is on the killer’s routine day-to-day life, which will strike many viewers as dull. The no-name actor smacks of a poor man's Jon Voight.

Ashley St. Jon is notable as the too-young blonde prostitute, but her role is too small. She happened to be a dancer in the Los Angeles area and is the only female to appear top nude in the movie, briefly. As the story proceeds, Rochelle Taylor is the one who rises to the fore as the proverbial ‘final girl,’ Cheryl.

While it's easy to look down on these types of films, there are some well-done parts, such as the climax that symbolizes wandering through the desert of this world like a lost zombie, wounded and dying. Additionally, I like the interesting reflection on the masculine spirit, which is very much a positive thing in our world, generally speaking, but if it becomes contaminated by bitterness or what have you, it veers toward self-destruction, abuse, misogyny, and murder.

For anyone who might criticize the film as anti-Christian, it’s not. It’s just showing the reality of mentally troubled (and hypocritical) people hiding their dark side behind a respectable garnishment. For instance, I know faithful churchgoers who brazenly murder people with their tongues every day; sad, but true.

It runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, and was shot in Pomona (the church) and Upland (the pub), which are a 30-35 minutes drive due east of downtown Los Angeles; other scenes were done in the city proper and the Mojave Desert, the latter located 3-4 hours northwest of the city.

GRADE: B-