This film is competently shot, well written and for the most part it is well acted. The problem is that what has been written and acted is so damned unpleasant. It's obviously based on the Richard Speck case which is a spoiler in itself if you are holding your breath to see how it comes out...
An American Vietnam vet with psychological problems and a pathological hatred of women has apparently been working his way home as a merchant seaman. He arrives in Belfast in the middle of a time of violence where armed soldiers move about the streets and Protestant and Catholic factions are shooting people daily. All of this is apparently intended to make some greater social comment but it would seem a bit obvious to state that violence begets violence or some such.
The nastiness of the film begins early with the young man's encounter with an aging whore whom he forces to dance nude in all her sagging wretchedness.
When the sick bastard finally enters the house occupied by eight young nurses he witnesses one of the girls making lesbian overtures to her friend. This leads him, later, to force the pair into performing sexually for him. I do not consider this a homophobic scene, as stated by a previous viewer, but it is a part of the intensely unpleasant sequence of rape, torture and murder which makes up about half the film.
The women are very passive and this makes the whole thing even nastier to watch. You want them to fight back. But I don't think any of Richard Speck's victims fought either, and their murderer was similarly armed with only a knife.
The violence is not terribly gory and there are no prosthetic blood-spurting wounds. The most graphic bit of gore comes almost at the end as the killer cuts his own wrist in a suicide attempt.
An American Vietnam vet with psychological problems and a pathological hatred of women has apparently been working his way home as a merchant seaman. He arrives in Belfast in the middle of a time of violence where armed soldiers move about the streets and Protestant and Catholic factions are shooting people daily. All of this is apparently intended to make some greater social comment but it would seem a bit obvious to state that violence begets violence or some such.
The nastiness of the film begins early with the young man's encounter with an aging whore whom he forces to dance nude in all her sagging wretchedness.
When the sick bastard finally enters the house occupied by eight young nurses he witnesses one of the girls making lesbian overtures to her friend. This leads him, later, to force the pair into performing sexually for him. I do not consider this a homophobic scene, as stated by a previous viewer, but it is a part of the intensely unpleasant sequence of rape, torture and murder which makes up about half the film.
The women are very passive and this makes the whole thing even nastier to watch. You want them to fight back. But I don't think any of Richard Speck's victims fought either, and their murderer was similarly armed with only a knife.
The violence is not terribly gory and there are no prosthetic blood-spurting wounds. The most graphic bit of gore comes almost at the end as the killer cuts his own wrist in a suicide attempt.