“A fictional story based on a real character” drones the obligatory title card of this umpteenth straight to DVD horror movie “inspired” by the activities of a real life serial killer. It belatedly joins at least two other recent movies about the same murderer – including one typically lame flick from prolific crap-master Ulli Lommel. A competent low-budget production that plays like a one-note TV true-crime thriller dressed up with unpleasantness (including a nasty fate for a state trooper and a spade shoved in a girl’s midriff), B.T.K. is most interesting for its rare unmasked leading role for long-time Jason Kane Hodder.
Hodder is a family man, a pillar of the Wichita community in which he resides with his loving wife and two well behaved teenage daughters. His job is that of a “compliance officer” – a glorified dog catcher, folks – which means that he issues nitpicking parking tickets by the book and measures blades of grass to make sure they comply with state laws. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s also a sick fuck who has been killing people for thirty years, preying largely on young women and hookers. As he becomes the new church president in his blissfully ignorant community, Hodder becomes frustrated at the slowness of the media in connecting and solving his killing spree.
Sporting a 70’s porn moustache, innocuous specs and a neck that’s the size (and texture) of a tree trunk, Hodder pulls off a nicely modulated split-personality performance. He surprisingly convinces as a polite, unthreatening, deeply anal officer who patrols neighborhoods in search of petty violations of silly laws, making us forget Jason…but then he makes an easy transition into the role of home-invading, hooker-abusing brutal psycho. Hodder’s imposing bulk is somehow even more frightening without a hockey mask to hide behind : just as he did in the Vorhees guise, the actor hoists up grown women like they’re rag dolls.
Hodder makes a fine fist of it, but the movie itself – with half-hearted attempts at style like split-screen sequences – is strictly by-the-numbers serial killer of the week stuff. Most damaging is its climactic drift into the realm of unintentional hilarity, its wrap up consisting of unwittingly funny, abysmally scripted scenes of Hodder’s family discovering the truth. Amy Lyndon, stuck with the script’s most embarrassing lines, is genuinely poor as the horror-struck wife who has to say things like “But…you’re the leader of the boy scouts!” while looking melodramatically distressed. Have some sympathy also for the weeping teenage daughter character who, upon discovering her dad has wracked up a body count in the dozens, laments “He never once helped me do my homework…”.
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
