From Mountaintop Motel Massacre director Jim McCullough Sr. and writer Jim McCullough Jr., the Shreveport, Louisiana-shot Video Murders posits a sad world in which single-dude schlubs watch homemade snuff tapes while eating Chinese takeout. At least that’s the case for David, played by Private Lessons pupil Eric Brown — the only remotely recognizable face in this cheap and dreary psycho thriller, unless Radio Shack Computer Center signage counts.
To a tinny score that sounds like TV’s Tales from the Darkside theme breeded with Sears’ 1975 Pong console, David’s hobby is renting, handcuffing and fatally choking hookers, in that order, all under the watchful eye of his VHS camera. Investigating detective Lt. Jerry Delvechio (John P. Fertitta, The Evictors) puts it best: “He’s a real freak!” In his first scene, Delvechio mentions David as the suspect in these serial killings without explaining how he knows.
Thirty minutes in, David attends a concert by The Insatiables, whose New Wave-coiffed lead sings, “He dreams in black and white.” This unassuming lyrics flips David’s switch like he’s The Manchurian Candidate, triggering flashbacks … from the past half-hour we just watched. Sadly, none are of what has to be regional cinema’s most incredible weather report.
Still, he manages to leave the club with a lonely, but still-too-cute-for-him receptionist (Virginia Loridans of the aforementioned Massacre) named Melissa Rivers. He treats her like she’s one of his disposable call girls, belching loudly near her face, holding her hostage and playing her Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13.
Thank God Delvechio has the foresight to hit up the greasy diner to get valuable info out of the registered nurse little person (one-timer Marti Anding Brooks as the dictionary-sounding Miriam Webster). Although David is responsible for the videoing and the murdering of Video Murders, the movie plays like a pilot for Lt. Delvechio — hopefully titled Delvechio — vying for space alongside McCloud and Columbo in The NBC Mystery Movie lineup. It never happened. Sorry about that, folks; back to you, Sylvia. —Rod Lott