Chronicle of a Serial Killer is a crime thriller directed by Steve Stanulis (Clinton Road), who also co-stars, and with a story written by John Bianco. The dialogue is so cliché and predictable that there were parts of this where I began to suspect it was actually meant to be taken as a comedy, but I don't think that was the intention. At least the make-up effects were quite fantastic.
Det. John Bosley (Stanulis) and his partner Det. Kelly Smith (Dominique Swain - Rottentail, Face/Off) are doing their best to try and stop a serial killer who is operating in their city. This killer (Brendan Sexton III - El Camino, Dark) has serious mother issues, and his modus operandi is to kidnap, torture, rape and kill women who look similar to his memories of her. An increasing body count causes growing anger for Bosley, who becomes more and more determined to catch the killer.
From the title, I initially expected the film to follow the killer himself, and to begin with it did seem this would be the case. While the antagonist is of course an essential character, it is far more the procedural investigation of Bosley and Smith that takes up much of the one hour forty minute runtime. In total, I would say around three quarters of the movie follow the duel protagonists around, with the other quarter dedicated to the twisted serial killer. Dubious mention has to go to the tired and unoriginal script. All characters here, especially the police, act like they are in the most generic 'made for TV' film of all time. They spout out tried and tested lines with nothing original or memorable being said. The police side of things has a smaller character count than you might expect, with the same few characters constantly turning up at different crime scenes. One of the police force actors is former rapper DMX, with this apparently being his final film role before his death.
The killer was easy to hate, and he is shown to be quite crazy. Flashback sequences of him being abused by his father as a child try to point to how he came to be so messed up. We only really see him during his crime phases, and being so unbalanced it seemed unlikely to me he would have been able to pass himself off as just a normal person outside of his crimes.
Chronicle of a Serial Killer may have been a tired and idea-less thriller but one thing it does get right is the fantastic make-up effects for the victims of the killer. One early scene in which a woman has her teeth bashed in with a hammer looked pretty gnarly, the blood effects, and injury effects always looked really strong, and were a highlight of what could often be a mean-spirited movie, where things don't always play out as you might expect.
As good as the make-up effects were, it couldn't prevent Chronicle of a Serial Killer feeling like a bit of a pointless movie. I didn't much care for any of the characters, made even harder for them to resonate by their clumsy and bland dialogue. The killer wasn't the worst here, but there wasn't much satisfaction with that side of things either. Not the worst, but definitely plenty forgettable.
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