The Charge

Every once in a while a movie comes along that hates you so much it would beat you to death with a hammer if it could. Baseline Killer is that movie.

Opening Statement

According to the disc case, this movie is "inspired by the streak of murders committed along Baseline Avenue in Arizona during 2006 and 2007."

Facts of the Case

Here's the best I can do for you, as far as plot summation goes: A group of girls in a loft are stalked and systematically killed by a redneck in a derby hat. Also, I very much want to gouge out my eyes with a teaspoon.

The Evidence

Some folks lost their lives in these so-called "Baseline Murders" and for that I am truly sorry. No one deserves their legacy to be so fouled and urinated upon like what director Ulli Lommel concocts in this movie that has rocketed to the top of my Most Loathed DVD Experiences of the Last Five Years chart. Believe my when I say that the competition to get listed there is indeed tight.

This isn't my first run-in with Lommel, a guy who made the movie Boogeyman like 20 years ago and has apparently parlayed that modest success into churning out putrid film adaptations of real-life murders. Baseline Killer is his latest "ripped from the headlines" effort and unless the headline was "Breaking News: This Blows," it's a failure.

For the first 20 minutes of the film, all that happens is a non-stop sequence of a bunch of a girls talking. That's it. Just talking. I honestly don't think it was written, because the banter is so insipid that it must have been just ad-libbed. If crap like "Is 'lesbianism' a word? Well, it's my word now!" was actually written into a script then I need to officially set my English and Writing B.A. on fire.

If you're still around by the 25 minute mark you'll finally get something different. That's when the Baseline Killer starts his rampage by screaming a lot and aiming his laser pointer at the girls' foreheads. They try to use their cell phone but for some reason that goes unexplained, these idiot murderers are able to intercept mobile phone calls. So the formula kicks in: a girl gets shot off screen, the killers scream "bitches and hoes," the girls try again with the cell phone then sit on a couch and contemplate ways to escape, which includes sleeping around, then the cycles begins again. More killing, more screaming, more lounging around and talking and another brain cell hangs itself.

That's it. I'm done. Do I need to go on about the horrendous acting, the grade-school camera work, the one girl taking the pulse of her friend with the gaping gunshot hole in her head, the spelling mistakes in the end titles? No I don't because you likely stopped reading this review a long time ago and, frankly, I lost interest in writing it sometime after "The Charge."

The DVD is a loser, too: a home-video-quality 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and a 2.0 stereo mix with just a photo gallery for extras.

Closing Statement

Your time would be better spent burning ants than watching this hemorrhage.

The Verdict

Guilty. Blecch.

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