Nightstalker

(2002) ***

What happened to my "real horror" plan? Empire of the Ants, Bug, D-War and Devil Dog cut my connection to "real" animals. King of the Ants wasn't based on real events, so there went that connection as well. I was lost.

Then I got Nightstalker in the mail. Based on the Richard Ramirez killing spree and cited alongside Ed Gein and Dahmer, I figured I was back on track.

Not so. Nightstalker is more inspired by real events than based on real events. Similarities include Mexicanism, mass murder and mcrack usage. The rest is a bunch of hooey.

The film mostly follows the fictitious astute sleuthing of the fictitious Detective Gabriela Martinez. For instance, she can tell the killer is Mexican because his murders are in largely Latino parts of LA (the film ignores the 8/15/85 murder of Peter and Barbara Pan in the San Francisco Bay Area --- yes, you read that right: Richard Ramirez killed Peter Pan).

The portrayal of his capture at the hands of Detective Martinez and her partner is 100% horseshit. In actuality Ramirez was taken down by a handful of civilians after he tried unsuccesfully to steal one of their cars.

Taken at face value, these fabrications aren't bad. Roselyn Sanchez is solid as Det. Martinez and the ever-awesome Danny Trejo gets a sizeable role playing a similarly fictitious street cop. Nightstalker presents an intriguing counterpoint between Ramirez's rampage and the milder, but no less disturbing sexism and drug use of Sanchez's fellow cops.

As for Ramirez himself, we barely know him. Unlike Dahmer and Ed Gein, Nightstalker provides no details about its title character's past. All we know about him is that he hates women and he loves crack. His scenes are a twisted mess of fast-motion photography and Jacob's Ladderesque headbanging. Satan follows him throughout the movie, shouting unintelligble belligerent commands to Ramirez. He's got a poster of Satan on his wall, leading me to wonder, does he have the poster because he sees Satan everywhere? or does he see Satan everywhere because that's the face he sees when he wakes up first thing in the morning -- the only time of the day he isn't high on crack?

Ed Gein and, to a lesser extent, Dahmer succeed because they give us an insider's look into the minds of their subjects. Nightstalker also does this, but since Ramirez's mind is such a drug fueled mess, there's not much to latch on to. It's like jumping into your television set, but instead of normal programming, you're wandering around in the scrambled porno channel.