Cold Light of Day, 1989
After multiple severed body parts are found in the drains around an apartment building, loner Dennis (Bob Flag) is brought in for questioning by the police. What unfolds during questioning is a tale of serial murder and compulsive killing.
This film is supposedly based on a true crime story, but it's not one that I'm familiar with, so I can't comment on the accuracy of the film or on the way that it portrays the killer or the victims.
That said, I felt that this was an effective film, its low budget look and feel an almost perfect fit for the grit and brutality of the crimes, as well as the deep shame of the man committing them. Dennis is in the habit of seducing men who are low on the socio-economic ladder. Able to offer first money and then a place to say, Dennis manages to lure multiple men back to his home where his angst around his sexual attraction to them eventually manifests in violent killings.
Several scenes from this film, and very specifically the murders themselves, evoke the feel of
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. This film doesn't have quite the acting or directing heft as
Henry, but it has that same element of feeling as if you are seeing real people at their worst.
The murder sequences--and the sequences in which Dennis violates and/or disposes of the bodies--are broken up by scenes of Dennis in the building, particularly of Dennis helping an elderly resident. These scenes are effective, as they seem to deepen the pathetic nature of Dennis's life, and the misery that surrounds him. There's a squalid intimacy to everything that happens, whether it's Dennis helping his elderly neighbor to change soiled clothes, or Dennis looping a tie around a drug addict's neck to strangle him.
Less effective are the cutaway scenes to the "present", which just consist of the police screaming abuse at Dennis, These scenes tend to break the tension rather than build it. I read that the film's director was only 21 when he made this film. If so, very cool. While it isn't perfect, it has an assured element to it.
I would give this one a tentative recommendation.