Murder Rap
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: D Film: D
Some people should just not make films and Kliff Kuehl,
who wrote the unspectacular Killing Device (reviewed elsewhere on this
site) tries to combine elements of three truly great films: William Friedkin’s To
Live & Die In L.A. (1985, also reviewed on this site), Francis Ford
Coppola’s The Conversation (1984) and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out
(1981, on DVD) and comes up with a disastrous mess in Murder Rap.
This is from 1988, before Hip Hop really kicked in. Audio obsessed Christopher (John Hawkes)
thinks he has recorded a woman being murdered.
Instead of investigating like we would hoper, he just gets involves by
geeking curiously into the situation until he is in too deep. Eventually, he is a target, but he is also a
mental case and (with no point) the sound of the girl being killed becomes part
of a rap song!
With this work, Kuehl proves that he is simply a total
hack ignorant of what makes great cinema.
This is one of the worst films I have seen in years and one of the worst
you will ever read about on this site.
I was rooting for the killers, who would hopefully then get guilty (for
killing the girl AND doing this film) and commit suicide. In any event, this is a celebration of snuff
filmmaking for idiots and should be avoided.
The full screen 1.33 X 1 image is average, with uninspired
camerawork by its would-be cinematographer and detail is not that good, but it
also looks like it was shot soft matte for 1.85 X 1 projection. The sound, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono from the
original theatrical mono, is as forgettable and unimaginative as the film and
the asinine death song. There is
supposed to be a theatrical trailer, but I could not find it, but there is a
trailer for VCI’s Cinema Pops series, all the titles of which look
comparatively better after suffering through this torture test. Stale, toxin-contaminated popcorn anyone?
- Nicholas Sheffo
