Sadly Over-hyped

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Sometimes a production team starts out to make a decent film and fails. The result is a bad film. Sometimes, it seems, the team sets out deliberately to make a bad film and succeeds. The result is a niche film like this, for which there is a certain audience in social space.I understand there's a twist at the end. I didn't see it because I stopped the punishment after half an hour.I give this cinematic ovoid cyst a Two because Lance Hendrickson is in it and plays an important part. That's it.The rest of the cast cannot act, period. It's embarrassing to watch them try. And the story -- you want the story? A cuckolded farmer kills his wife, her lover, and their child, chops them up, fries them on a grill, and opens a roadside hamburger stand called Roadkill that becomes so popular people flock to it.Where does he get his supply? There's nothing in it "but what I kill with my own hands." And it's true. He pursues an endless supply of half-naked ladies, their breasts bobbing, through the fields and shoots them through the head.Pfui.

Aside from a few interesting performances from various cast members, CYRUS: MIND OF A SERIAL KILLER has virtually nothing going for it. You'd be better of going with alternative serial killer titles like HENRY LEE LUCAS: SERIAL KILLER or DEAR MR. GACY as at least these are films which attempt to tell a proper story rather than this nonsensical, made-up amateur-hour attempt.The film begins with an elderly man being interviewed for a documentary about a serial killer. Kudos on the casting director for getting hold of Scream Queen Danielle Harris to play the reporter, but truth be told her acting isn't up to much. However, the subject of the interview is played by Lance Henriksen, who also narrates the story; he's by far the best thing in the whole film and I could listen to his gravelly voice all day. It's a shame that most of the material is beneath him.After a mildly promising set-up in the first half-hour, this turns into a very silly gore flick with one grisly murder after another. It all feels very ho hum and uninteresting, repellent but not disturbing; just a waste of time and effort. Tiffany Shepis and Doug Jones both pop up to offer cameo appearances and lessen the boredom, but this is still one of the worst serial killer movies I've sat through. The most amusing thing about the film is that the whole thing seems to hinge around a final twist that will be obvious from the very first scene.

Cyrus is a sadistic serial killer. A cute girl investigative reporter is looking into his story. Good things are unlikely to follow.It strikes me that good horror films about slasher killers fall into one of two categories: either attempts to tell a serious story about something which doesn't need sensationalising, or else blood-soaked romps which revel in blood-soaked slaughter but don't take themselves seriously.Cyrus, unfortunately, is a romp which takes itself seriously and accordingly comes across as sensationalised sadistic unpleasantness without the saving graces of either taking its subject seriously or having a sense of humour.And it's a shame, because it has some good performances, particularly from Brian Krause, laying to rest his good guy image from TV's Charmed.

A small independent news crew investigates a series of unexplained disappearances in a small Midwestern county.This film will be a treat for those who love horror icons. Brian Krause ("Sleepwalkers") stars as Cyrus, with plenty of screen time for Danielle Harris as Maria and Lance Henriksen as Emmett. Even Doug Jones and Tiffany Shepis show up for a while.This film has received some criticism for not being very original and following old horror movie, especially slasher, clichés. And yes, it does have some. But I think this was sort of the point... clearly the writer-director is a horror fan based on his casting, so he must have been paying homage to his favorites. This is no different than what Rob Zombie did with "House of 1000 Corpses" (though that one was a little too blatant in my opinion).The film claims to be based on true events, which I strongly suspected was completely false. I called out director Mark Vadik on this, and he set the record straight: it is, in fact, based very loosely on the life of serial killer Fritz Haarmann, with some background details of other serial killers thrown in. So, I suppose, we have to let this slide. (I strongly urge you to look into Haarmann's story -- it is pretty graphic, and a closer telling would be an amazingly demented film.)Vadik also informed me that the claim of the film being banned in six countries is true. They are ones you might expect -- United Arab Emirates and the Middle Eastern countries -- but this is still a cool claim. While any number of reasons could be behind the ban, there is one sequence involving breast feeding that likely got some people's heckles raised.Check this one out. This is a breakout role for Brian Krause, who was already a big star from "Charmed". He spent much time researching killers -- particularly BTK and the Green River Killer -- for this role, and even did much of the second unit directing, picking up important shots of death scenes. His work is subtle, but the reason the film is good rather than forgettable.