This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Son of Sam (2008) * 1/2 (out of 4) German director Ulli Lommel is back once again with yet another true life serial killer flick. This time out we travel to New York in 1977 when David Berkowitz (Yogi Joski) would have the entire city in terror and become known as the Son of Sam. As of me writing this Lommel had done thirteen of these films and this here is the tenth one that I've seen. Lommel has also gone outside the serial killer mode in the past few years with ZOMBIE NATION and THE TOMB but no matter which film you look out it's going to be pretty bad, which is a shame since this is the same guy who delivered the cult classic THE BOOGEY MAN. This film here is actually one of Lommel's best in years and certainly ranks higher than many films in this series but there are still way too many problems for the film to work. On a technical level the movie is a step up as it appear Lommel actually took his time to film it. Previous films were full of errors but at least those aren't here. The performances are all stale to say the least but Joski isn't too bad. The low-budget nature of the film is all over the place with the lack of any real special effects and some of the silly camera shots. If you've never seen any of these serial killer films before then you're probably going to be thinking this is an extremely poor movie. If you've seen previous ones and walk into this expecting something horrid, you might surprise yourself with a bad movie but one that's a step up from the others. The real nail in the coffin comes during all the scenes dealing with the devil worshipping and possession. These scenes are just repeated throughout the movie and they become quite tiresome after a while. Had the director stayed more focuses on the killer and his attorney things might have been even better.

My cousins decided to see this on pay per view, and we definitely wished that we could refund it. After seeing the whole movie, we felt that we could have made a better movie with nothing but a camcorder (which is probably what these people used as well). The filming style is crappy, as is the acting and the effects. The Satanic worship sequences are anything but scary and are more hilarious than anything else. The main actor should probably stay away from acting as should the rest of the actors in this film. At times, they used the same actors from an older scene in a different scene. Stay as far away from this trash if you value your time.

wow! I'm actually playing the DVD right now and it is soooo freakin' awful! I don't even have to wait for it to end to write my review. It's like a sub-par student production. The writing is unbelievably bad. And the acting... well, I seriously think I saw better acting in my daughters elementary school play. If these are serious actors trying to build an acting career, I really feel bad for them, it would really have to suck to be associated with this film. If I were them, I'd make sure to leave this horrid film out of their resume. I'm not all that picky when it comes to films either. I always try to find something good about a production. But this.. I just can't find the silver lining on this film. I think this Ulli Lommel fella should maybe consider looking for another line of work.

***SPOILERS*** Somewhat fictionalized account of the Son of Sam's murderous rampage that terrorized the city of New York back in 1976/1977. We get to see David Bekowitz aka Son of Sam after his capture by the NYPD in a holding cell being interviewed by his court appointed attorney Miss. Kline.Not at all denying his crimes that put some fifteen people in the hospital or morgue Berkowitz spills his guts out telling Miss Kline that the Devil made him do it. Alone and without any friends David got in with the wrong crowd, he tells Miss. Kline, who happened to be a gang of Satan worshipers. These evil people so thoroughly brainwashed poor David's mind to the point where he didn't have a mind of his own but one that's controlled by the Devil, or Satan, himself.We then have this slew of flashbacks of David moping around town, mostly around the Brooklyn Bridge, looking for victims to sacrifice, with his bulldog .44 handgun, to his Lord & Master Satan wherever he gets the call to do it. It seems that David's victims in the film don't corresponds with the real victims that the real Son of Sam murdered during his killing spree. None of the some dozen persons he guns down, and the circumstances under which he shoots them, don't remotely resemble those that the real Son of Sam did in some 30 years ago! There's also the story of who's directing Berkowitz to do these terrible things that turned out to be a black or chocolate Labrador dog name Sam thus the name Son of Sam that Berkowitz gave himself. In the film we see David on very friendly terms with Sam even at times sleeping with the mutt which also doesn't correspond with the real events of the Son of Sam murder case.In real life it wasn't Sam the dog whom Berkowitz was referring to as his father but Sam the man, Sam Carr, who's dog Harvey-called Sam in the movie-was driving Berkowitz nuts barking all night keeping him awake! In fact Berkowitz tried a number of times, after telling Sam Carr to shut his dog up, to shoot Harvey in order to keep him from constantly barking and thus be able to finally get himself a good night sleep! It was this non-stop barking on Harveys part that convinced Berkowitz that the dog was an agent of Satan pounding into his head orders to go out and kill for him through the Yonkers, where Berkowitz lived at the time, based Satanic Cult that he belonged to.Knowing that he's hopelessly possessed and controlled by the Devil/Satan Berkowitz finally asks and gets a local Catholic Priest-Father Duncan- to do an exorcism on him and free his body & soul from the evil influence that the Devil/Satan has on them. It's then after being cleansed by Father Duncan of the evil that has been driving him to maim and murder Berkowitz finally sees the light and becomes "whole" again. With his both body and soul exercised of the evil that the Devil/Satan infected them with Berkowitz has now, in the movie, become a new spiritual and righteous human being. Morphing from the evil Son of Sam into the good kind and loving Son of Hope that's he's known as, behind prison bars, today.Nothing really that new here on the murderous history of David Berkowitz but the fact that what he did wasn't done on his own but with the help and urging of his fellow Satanic Cult members. It seems in the movie that only Berkowitz was entrusted to do all the dirty work by the Satanic Cult as if he, being an army veteran, was the only one who knew how to handle a handgun. What really struck me about Berkowitz and his many victims in the movie is how they never saw him coming, even when he was standing right in front of them, until he started blasting away! It seemed as if Satan himself made Berkowitz, who had great trouble handling his .44 bulldog revolver, invisible so he wouldn't be spotted by his intended victims until it was too late!