Writer-director Teddy Grennan re-imagines neo-noir by way of star-crossed lovers, creating a thriller using known horror films to find the clues in tracking down a serial killer in Catch A Killer. Diving deep into detail and building a suspenseful plot, the film has all the slasher qualities of bloody and gruesome murders but comes with an ending so painful that… well, you’ll see and be rendered broken and aghast.
Catch A Killer opens with a map that strings together locations, the type detectives use to solve crimes. This is followed by a mash-up of sounds, murder scene snapshots, evidence photos, lots of blood, computer records, screeching and scratchy effects, and layers of gruesome details. All of this is preparation for what’s to come.
Lex (Tu Morrow) is in an astronomy/astrology class and learns about Artemis and Orion. This beautiful pixie of a girl is pregnant, and after class, she meets up with Otto (Sam Brooks), her partner and baby’s daddy. Full of passion, the couple have sex in a carwash, followed by Otto going to his very stylish trailer home to smoke a joint and watch a horror film, only he is called into work by his empathetic boss Jane (Grace Chang) to mop up a murder in an eerie and spooky house where an elite fraternity initiation went wrong and deadly.
“…the young couple manages to crack the code for the next murder.”
At the crime scene, interaction with the detectives is rough, as Otto’s ex-girlfriend Peggy (Tommi Rose) is one of them, and Otto’s ex-colleague Detective Cobain (Michael Weaver) is also there. Otto was derailed on becoming the city’s youngest detective and now is a bio-remediation specialist obsessed with horror. Even at this low level, he refuses to give up on what he loves. While he is trying to solve the string of brutal murders, for which Detective Cobain has no idea how they are happening, the young couple manages to crack the code for the next murder. Along the way, Otto tries to make a better life for himself, Lex, and their baby, buying a home and wanting back on the police force. Only there’s a plan to derail it all, and it’s particularly horrific.
Revenge is almost too brutal to watch in Catch A Killer. The stylish direction oozes cool and atmosphere without being too showy. The excellent soundtrack is hip and happening, matching Otto and Lex’s envious lifestyle. The cinematography matches the bleak tone but is still visually impressive. The two leads, Murrow and Brooks, are fantastic together. We believe they love each other, and as the story gets more horrifying, we feel bad for what befalls them.
Stylish and genre-layered, Catch A Killer has breakout performances by Brooks and Morrow. Grennan delivers a twisted thriller that elevates the feeling of horror and the uncanny ways it moves through our culture. The intrigue begins from early on and never lets go until the bleak conclusion.
"…a twisted thriller that elevates the feeling of horror..."
