Murderlust (1985) — Triskaidekafiles

MURDERLUST

WRITER: James Lane

DIRECTOR: Donald Jones

STARRING: Eli Rich as Steve
Rochelle Taylor as Cheryl
Dennis Gannon as Neil
Bonnie Schneider as Marene
Lisa Nichols as Debbie
H. Burton Leary as Joe
Bill Walsh as Lymen

QUICK CUT: A Sunday school teacher struggles to find belonging outside of his activities with the church.

THE MORGUE

Steve - A devout religious man, who is kind to children, teaches at the nearby Sunday School program and…a bit of a murderer.

Cheryl - A woman who almost winds up in Steve’s cliffside pit of bodies, but eventually starts dating him.

Debbie - A young girl, a student of Steve’s, and she gives him no end of troubke.

Neil - Steve’s cousin, who is constantly bailing him out and giving him a hand.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! The time has come once again for our Just Wrong Love Story for the day before Valentines! This year, is an odd little one off called Murderlust. I can't see how a movie with that lovely title could ever go wrong, so let's get on with things.

The movie opens up with Steve in a staring contest with us, while he's out with his drinking buddies, until a prostitute catches his eye. There's some banter, he goes over to her, and tries to get her to meet him outside.

While she goes to wait for him, he heads back to get the keys, and chat with a random Australian friend?? and then meets up with the girl.

He finds her outside having a smoke, and she returns his money, having second thoughts. He said some weird stuff she took wrong, but he was just playing things up in front of the guys. He keeps pestering her, refusing to let her go, and eventually she agrees to a blow job at an inflated price.

"I guess I'm not the only sucker here," is such a great line.

Also, Steve asks if he's the kind of guy who looks like he would hurt someone? If someone asks that, the ANSWER IS YES!

Because once she's in the van, he conks her with a crowbar, ties her up, and kills her.

Once he's had his way with her, he drives way out into the middle of nowhere, tosses her off a cliff, and implies several more bodies are down there waiting to keep her company.

The next day, Steve is dozing off...while teaching Sunday school. Yes, when he's not murdering prostitutes, he is imparting the ways of our Lord unto your children!

He has the kids writing out something or other, and when the time comes to read them out, Debbie says she didn't write anything.

And say hello to all them old E.T. cartridges, babe!

Instead, she drew something, and he demands to see it; a crudely drawn picture of himself, doing equally crude things.

Being properly insulted, he drags the kid off to have a talk with her parents, and other people at the, I believe this is a catholic school of some sort.

After she gets reprimanded and threatens revenge, Steve goes and finds another prostitute to blow off some steam, bringing her back to his place.

Gosh darnit, wouldn't you know it, he goes and strangles THIS one too. That abandoned quarry is gonna fill up right quick at this rate.

I don’t remember THAT weapon from Castlevania…

Of course, nothing is ever easy, and his cousin stops by to see Steve right in the middle of his murderlust. He stashes the body in the shower, and just tries to get his cousin out of there as quick as possible.

Later, Steve is trying to cart the girl's body in a trash can into his van for disposal, and Neil returns to resume bugging the shit out of him. What’s going on? There's no trash on Sundays! Can he take his trash too? What is in this that's so heavy??

Steve starts yelling to just help him already, and yes, this behaviour is perfectly normal.

But he gets the body taken care of, and takes a piss on them...hey now, golden showers cost extra.

He eventually comes home and has to deal with Neal Flanders some more covering for him when the landlord came by. Steve shrugs it off and stumbles around drunkenly, but that only delayed the inevitable as the landlord comes by in the morning for his rent.

While Steve writes out a portion of the rent, he gets a call from the school, asking him to come in for a chat in a few days over something. Hmm!

So he heads off to work, where he's a security guard for a racetrack. He's running late, does not get along with authority, and is on the verge of being fired at any moment.

It is like watching two, or maybe three different Steves. He is an entirely different person at the school, at home/murdering, and at work.

That's also when he starts hearing news on the radio, and finds some papers, that his dump site has been discovered, with nine bodies, and he has been dubbed "the Mojave Murderer". Not bad, I've heard worse names.

As he's driving around, he sees a poor girl pulled off on the road and stops by to help, I'm sure! She says you can't be too careful, but she trusts him. "Do I look like a murderer?" Again, if someone asks that, THE ANSWER IS YES!

Oh I see what your problem is! You’re missing a garotte!

But she continues to hint that she had a good reason why she trusts him, and he seems oblivious. Eventually, just before he koshes her with the crowbar, she reveals she was one of his students, and had a crush on him in high school.

Steve instantly puts his plans on hold, because it's a bad idea to kill someone who has a connection to you. Even one that tenuous. And she is too focused on him, so it wouldn't be as easy.

Anyways, Steve goes in for his meeting with the priest, and Debbie's father is there, passing on accusations that she was sexually harassed.

Scrapbooking, a hobby largely kept alive by serial killers.

Steve remains calm and collected, and Mr. Schultz is almost ashamed to be there, and some people are there to back up his character.

Back at work, things are going great, as someone THERE is accusing him of attacking her as well. I know the first one was fake (OR WAS IT?) but this one I dunno.

When his boss and his union rep step outside to chat things out, Steve goes and threatens the girl, calling her one dead bitch, and things escalate until he quits on the spot.

But the landlord wants the rest of his rent, the security guard job won't release his check unless he signs some forms, he has no new job lined up...things are not going well for Steve!

He heads over to borrow some money to cover the rent, from Neil Flanders, but cuz sets down some terms; namely no more drinking, and taking the janitor position that's open at the department store he works at.

With things going looking up, Steve drives around, until he finds a girl and asks for some directions. He tells her he's a photographer, and she would make one heck of a model. It takes a lot of convincing, but Steve actually talks her to getting in his van.

I am sure you can figure out where this goes.

Later, Steve heads in to his new job...late. On his first day. And immediately takes a break, starts drinking, and ignores being paged. So this is going swell.

But back at church, he runs into Cheryl again, and he realises her mom is one of his coworkers there. They talk about the Mojave Murderer, and Cheryl says she has a plan if she ever meets him...oh boy are YOU in for a surprise.

He heads over to their place for dinner, and that's when Mrs. Wexler informs him he has been chosen to head the Adolescent Crisis Unit. ...What is he gonna do with kids in crisis?? Tell them to bottle it up and repress until it explodes into murderous rage?

With the new position secured, he heads back to the store and tells Neil to SUUUuuuuck it, and heads back to the church.

To celebrate, Steve picks up Cheryl, they head to his new offices, and they desecrate them with dinner and sex.

So uh...are you just gonna...leave? I mean, those candles...guys??

Well, God has other plans, as he makes Steve unable to get it up, making him sexually on top of his normal frustrated.

Dude probably can't get hard unless he plans to kill a girl.

Steve storms off a bit to collect his thoughts, and when he returns, Cheryl is gone. He finds her outside, and talking to Debbie, of all people. And she’s run away from home.

After the pair separate, Steve goes to pick up Debbie, and offer her a place to stay for the night, to calm down and think things through before definitely running off.

I am sure you know where this is gonna end up.

This absolutely WRECKS Cheryl, because she had a chance to help her, and she might not have run afoul of Mojave Man. But Steve talked her out of it for SOME reason.

Steve calms her down, but Cheryl has a revelation; what if the killer knows that office is for teens in crisis, and all he would have to do is lurk around, find a kid, and snatch them up...and oh HOW VERY CLOSE YOU GET, GIRL

Unfortunately, she voiced her concerns to the man holding the pursestrings, and he shut down the centre, until the killer can be caught. This sends Steve into another impotent rage.

Steve calls Cheryl's mom, makes it sound like they had a fight over all this, which is not far from the truth, but says she ran off. This will be a good cover wh...if she ends up dead.

He takes her out for a drive to the desert to clear the air...and I am sure y'all can see where this is going!

They get into a fight, and Steve admits to being the killer. He tries strangling her, but she begs for one last kiss, which he is more than happy to oblige! Well, more fool him, because she bites him right in the face part of the face.

She gets the gun Steve set aside, shoots him as he runs out of the van into the desert, shoots him a few more times, and leaves him there in the desert for the credits to take care of.

Murder me like one of your French girls.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Not too bad. It’s a bit pale, a but low budget, but for the level it was probably made on, it’s just fine.

Audio: Right in that average area.

Sound Bite: “If you love me, you won't die so quickly!”

Body Count: Sadly, most of Stevjave’s murders are off camera. A merely average showing.

1 - 8:30 minutes or so in, and Steve takes out his first prostitute.
2 - Another prostitute gets strangled
3 - Kills the blonde
4 - Debbie gets added to the body pile
5 - Steve gets shot up by the girl and left to die in the desert.

Best Corpse: The blonde he seduces with a lucrative modeling career. The build up, the tension, the payoff.

Blood Type - F: I barely recall any blood until Steve was getting shot.

Sex Appeal: Some boobs when one of the ladies gets undressed.

Drink Up! every time Steve acts like someone else is to blame for his problems.

Movie Review: This is actually very well put together. The narrative is very clear, and I enjoy the two sides of Steve, and how they affect him, and how he knows when and how to channel his rage. The acting from the main is just fine, and it’s well shot, with some moments of creativity. It’s familiar, with just enough of a different feel to it that makes it just unique enough. Watching Steve, you ALMOST want him to succeed, get his shit together, and stop murdering, but life keeps kicking him down. This is the Joker origin story we could have gotten in the 80s. A fascinating little character study with some good bits of sleaze in there. Four out of five security guard hats.

Entertainment Value: There’s nothing quite silly enough here to go with, nothing quite bad enough, and there’s a few pacing issues. It gets laggy when we’re watching Steve complain about his day, and how everything is someone else’s fault. But it’s JUST engaging enough, thanks to the actor, and there’s always a set piece around the corner. Three out of five very heavy trash cans.