I wanted to but couldn't!

Fresh and Exciting

Blistering performances.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

With no originality at all and plenty of bad things in its core, "The Alphabet Killer" comes to ruin what could be a good story about the real events surrounding the alphabet killer, a psychopath that kidnapped and killed several girls whose initial letters were the same and he never got caught by the police. Eliza Dushku plays an detective working on the case, trying to discover who this guy is and trying to recover her own sanity after seeing strange hallucinations and visions of the victims while investigating the case. She gets some help from Timothy Hutton's character, a paraplegic psychologist and from another detective; and doesn't get along with her ex-boyfriend (Cary Elwes) who also covers the case. So, the movie is more about her traumatic and ridiculous moments than to save lives or catch a killer. The director and writers didn't know how to built a suspense and sustain a mystery, everything is so slow and they didn't know how to scare the audience (although the final revelation of who the killer was is so predictable that you might laugh or say that is unbelievably bad). It's not just that that ruins the film, it is also the twisted moments that Dushku has and we're forced to watch being the worst the scene where she escapes from the hospital where she was held, breaking the arm of a nurse even though she already dominated him, and he couldn't do anything with her. That scene is pathetic, also the scenes with her delusions and the "music in her ears" in the church scene."The Alphabet Killer" is filled with bad acting, a story with no involvement, no thrill, nothing. Dushku and Elwes are terrible, what a bomb! What happened to Elwes eyebrow? He looked like a old female witch; and Dushku had the guts to produce something like this. The surprising good acting in this thing comes from Melissa Leo and Martin Donovan playing the parents of the Walsh girl, one of the victims; Jack McGee has some good moments and Timothy Hutton is there for reasons of embarrassment and those things can happen with a previous Oscar winner.Movies inspired in real events usually are good and I enjoy it, but this one is a almost supernatural dramatic flick who has nothing good in it, a waste of time. Pathetic! 2/10

This crime thriller centers on a detective named Megan (Eliza Dushku) who investigates a series of child murders in upstate New York. But Megan suffers from a mental illness, the symptoms of which get worse as she delves deeper into the killings. She hears strange voices and sees "visions" related to the victims.With low light levels and muted colors, combined with creepy background music, the film's first half creates an effective thriller atmosphere. We see the outline of the killer, but never the face. Will Megan solve the murders and overcome her illness, or will the inept police supersede, to botch the case? As viewers, we root for Megan to succeed.Although the script idea originates from a real-life murder case, referred to generally as the "double initial" serial killings, which terrorized upstate New York in the early 1970s, the film's overall plot and main characters are fictional. The story setting is the present, not the 1970s. The scriptwriter created the Megan character out of thin air. And the story's outcome deviates considerably from the outcome of the real-life case. The film's writer wrote a fictional plot, based on a real-life premise. The film's second half fails to convince, largely because of its clichéd plot contrivances.Visuals consist of an annoying widescreen projection and some hokey CGI effects, in the form of "ghosts". But the low lighting contributes tension, as does some clever low-angle camera shots. And the director relies mostly on a hand-held camera, which enhances realism. Overall casting and acting are fine."The Alphabet Killer" gets off to a great start. But it falters in the second half, owing to fictional plot points that dilute the underlying real-life premise. I would have preferred a narrative that followed the true story, though I understand that the reason for not doing so was budget constraints. By lowering one's expectations, the viewer may find the film worthwhile, either as a fictional thriller or as a character study of a woman fighting her own demons.

Pretty good portrayal. Slow but effective. The horror of knowing something imposing and being unable to communicate it must be the deepest pain, deeper than dental nerves, than bones. This moves slowly, and it is a bit too obvious in the showing of the victim's ghosts. But there is a certain beauty in working with an insane narrator — especially if you know that the actress here commissioned the thing for herself. The story here is of three deceptions. The first is the ordinary detective form: a murderer kills innocent girls and is intent on obfuscating the narrative. This is always present. We have a second baffle; the local police kill an innocent fellow and frame him for the murders simply because they need to make progress. This is an American story, this justice. It appears less frequently in detective films as a genuine blind instead of a simple obstacle. But here it is a full on crime. But there is a third element, a third deception at work: the narrator/ detective is schizophrenic. She makes the normal number (using the Poirot metric) of mistakes. We have several suspects, including the insider cop/lover. She ends up fooling her listeners: us and her police peers, into believing that she did not solved the case.The end is satisfying, and is worth the grind if you have the time to invest. These things rarely end competently, and this one does.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Spoilers.Eliza Dushku is Megan, a police officer in Rochester, New York, who is investigating a case of child rape and murder. The girl's name was something like Carlina Cacciatore and her body was dumped in Churchtown. Dushku fastens on to the CCC connection while everyone else pooh poohs it.The second victim turns up, something like Wilma Weinstein from Weber. Then there's a Penelope Purcell from Pipe Organ. Maybe there's a Marla Marple from Michigas in there too. I lost count. Ka-ching.This is too much for Dushku. She begins to crack up and hallucinate the dead little girls. She's not only taken off the case but shipped off to the hospital. Upon her release she spends two years in group counseling, led by the understanding, wheelchair-bound Timothy Hutton.Hutton isn't on screen that often. She goes to him for a few words of reassurance on those occasions when her hallucinations begin scratching at the door. If, by their third meeting, you haven't figured out that Hutton not only can walk but is the child-raping murderer to boot, you haven't seen enough movies of this genre.The plot is too ridiculous to describe further. The acting isn't in any way distinguished either. Dushku has modest talent. Cary Elwes and Michael Ironside must not be getting too many offers these days.The worst conceit is the ambiguous ending. The last shot is of Dushku strapped down in a mental hospital, completely ga ga, and then the epilogue -- the notorious alphabet killer has never been caught and remains at large -- thus clearing the way for a SEQUEL to this meretricious rubbish. Let's hope nothing comes of it or we'll all wind up in the rubber room with Megan.The only redeeming feature of the production is the sound of gunshots. They're not as loud as real gunshots but their sonic contours are similar.Nice job there. With the gunshots. The rest of the movie stinks. Want more proof? The alphabet connection is never explained, just plain dropped from the plot, a sensible but negligible inconvenience, like a trouser pocket full of too much heavy change.And another thing. No more heroines with names like Megan or Regan. Or cute names like Ally or Jillian either. An onomastic irritant.