William Friedkin has passed away at the age of 87, a formidable director who reawakened people's senses with two iconoclastic 1970's films that challenged their respective genres. Those would be "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist," two major classics with one featuring one of the best car chases ever filmed and the other featuring some of the scariest supernatural thrills of all time. Of course what made these films so furiously alive and vivid in our collective imaginations is that Friedkin made them feel grounded - they were realistically conveyed and "French Connection" almost felt like a documentary with some hair-spinning hand-held camerawork. "The Exorcist" felt like an examination of evil in the least likely place - a pre-teen girl's bedroom.
It would not be fair to highlight only those two films because his talent was evident elsewhere, especially his early documentary work. A Friedkin film that is still underappreciated and has been lost in the shuffle is 1987's "Rampage" which features a dynamic, scary performance by Alex McArthur as Charles Reece, a serial killer. This was no average killer (based on a true story of the Vampire Killer of Sacramento) - he went into people's homes and mutilated his victims and drank their blood (in one truly spellbinding scene, shot in slow-motion, he slathers blood over his body). Eventually, he's caught and sent to prison and Michael Biehn plays an idealistic District Attorney/prosecutor who seeks the death penalty for Charles despite being initially against it. Meanwhile it is determined by doctors and a psychiatrist that the killer is mentally insane and should be in a mental hospital.
All sorts of legal questions are raised in "Rampage" and some of them are uneven and not always convincing, particularly Biehn's switcheroo with respect to what he considers ethical punishment. Still, the root of the film's success is Alex McArthur's chilling, persuasive performance as a seemingly innocent-looking man wearing a red windbreaker who suddenly reveals an animal bent on blood lust. Director Friedkin once again keeps the material grounded in an unshakable reality that occasionally brings up similarities with the monumentally frightening "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer." And just like "Henry" which couldn't find a distributor for years, "Rampage" had been completed in 1987 through DEG (De Laurentiis) company until it went belly up. Released through Miramax Pictures five years later in limited release, "Rampage" still held its own against any exploitative slasher flick - this was serious, urgent material given a boost by its death penalty vs. insanity defenses. There are also scenes of such unbridled, unhinged madness from the killer's point-of-view that your heart will skip a few beats. William Friedkin was that in a nutshell in his best films - he made your heart skip and your blood pressure rise.
No comments:
Post a Comment