Ezra Bumble (James Gramling) has two problems. The first problem is that he gets a kick out of bludgeoning prostitutes to death then having sex with their corpses. The second problem is that his gay co-worker Lewis (Barry King) knows about Ezra’s lethal fetish and is blackmailing the murderous necrophiliac into sleeping with him in order to buy his silence. After Ezra’s latest terminal one night stand, Lewis, a bit of a lonely guy, offers the killer a deal: If Ezra agrees to spend the entire night with him, Lewis promises to introduce him to the sexy new receptionist Maggie (Olivia Donegan). Ezra agrees and discovers that Maggie’s as conceited as she is unbelievably attractive. Still, the fact that she wants nothing more than abundant no-strings-attached sex with Ezra goes a long way towards helping him forgive any annoying character flaws she might possess, especially when she greets him in skimpy red lingerie; her hair blowing in the breeze like a sex goddess from a “Whitesnake” video. When, after an initial bout of bed wrestling, Maggie invites Ezra into the kitchen for something kinky, he readily complies, only to discover that he’s not the only one with difficulties taking the lethalness out of sex.
Like “Bothered,” Herb Henderson’s “The Strange Case of Ezra Bumble” is another marginally effective, but predictable dark comedy. He’s got the whole film grammar thing down, but other than having a knack for getting pretty women to disrobe and engage in lots of fake bloodletting, there’s not much here to recommend. I would be curious, however, to see what Henderson could do with a truly original story idea; something “The Strange Case of Ezra Bumble” is not.
