The Hillside Strangler (2004)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Kenneth Bianchi	C. Thomas Howell	½
Angelo Buono	Nicholas Turturro	½
Claire Shelton	Allison Lange
Christina Chavez	Marisol Padilla Sánchez
Erin	Jennifer Tisdale
Jenny Buono	Lin Shaye

Review

The story about average Joes Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono who went rampant murdering young women in the late 70s is quite interesting, but not necessarily enough so to keep a film like this engaging for an hour and a half without inspired direction. The Hillside Strangler is by no means a big budget movie, but it really doesn't have to be, taking into account the nature of the story. Fine acting by Howell and Turturro in the leads makes for a promising start with good character portraits, but once the film goes into murdering mode, it becomes repetitive, uncreative and unsuspenseful. Director Parello's feeble attempts at getting under the skin of his protagonists never become effective, and we're left with a detached run of the mill story about killing - in the more technical sense of the word, unfortunately.