Rating: 3.5/5
Police stand over a dead woman. A reporter named Jean sneaks on the scene and talks to Inspector Lonzo. Jean recently moved to this neighborhood, and this murder is the third in two weeks. She gets no answers, but the Inspector tells her to leave town.
Cut to a party Jean is throwing. A goth punk band called Disease sings about suicide as a woman dances with a lightsaber or something. A guy carries a boa constrictor around.
Marica and Jean talk about Bryan, Jean’s bass player boy toy. Marcia says Jean is brave for venturing out, leaving her husband, David, and whatnot.
Cut to Jean and Bryan, hungover on the couch. They hear a noise in the bathroom. They pull back the shower curtain to find Marcia dead, her eye cut out, her brain missing — the killer’s MO.
The inspector suspects Bryan’s band, Disease. Jean thinks it’s the unhoused man everyone calls Creeper.
Jean goes on a quest to find the killer, interviewing the neighborhood for answers. The thing is, no one’s talking.
This movie is one of the best-looking SOV films I’ve seen. It looks cheap, but the editing and compositions are above average. It doesn’t lean into the in-camera camcorder effects that many SOVs use.
The special effects aren’t amazing, but they’re effective. There’s an autopsy scene where they peel a guy’s face off and open his skull. Jean has a wacky nightmare sequence with all sorts of indiscernible goopy gore.
Every nude scene is a single tastefully revealed breast.
The soundtrack is peak 1988 — all default keyboard patches. It feels like an R-rated Are You Afraid of the Dark.
The film capitalizes on the Bay Area post-punk scene, recruiting SF goth-punk staples The Nuns to be the band Disease. We also get a brief Anchor beer cameo. If that isn’t enough, we have some B-roll of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Thematically, the movie touches on gentrification and how wealthy poseurs suck the life out of neighborhoods, leaving the most disadvantaged on the street.
The movie develops its subplot surrounding Jean’s divorce and figuring her life out in her 30s. Kate Alexander’s commitment makes it all work.
I genuinely can’t tell if this movie is good or my taste is going to shit. Regardless, I love it!