The parade of crime-scene corpses at the outset combines gore and cheesecake in a way reminiscent of the illustrations in True Detective, but active violence — the deed itself as opposed to the bloody result — is kept off screen for a surprising length of time: long enough so that we may become thoroughly convinced of the seriousness of first-time director John McNaughton. The form which this seriousness takes is that of the semi-professional shoestringer, graced with little rhythm or organization, with awkward dialogue and oil-drum sound, with grainy photography and dull color: sufficiently cold comfort, in short, for any lack of gore, and no comfort at all when the lack becomes an abundance. The turning point comes roughly halfway through, with the first on-screen killing (of a richly deserving victim) and the theft of a camcorder. There immediately follows the strongest scene in the movie, the protracted slaughter of an entire family as viewed on TV by the simultaneous perpetrators and home-video documenters of the crime. This scene is all the stronger for the ostensible “distancing” device of watching it on (ineptly shot and unedited) video: it has much the same feeling of helplessness — of whatever has happened has happened — as the murder-on-video in Bad Influence; and it says something quite comprehensible about the murderers’ appetite for power and importance. But it would be a long leap from there to establish some sort of didactic connection between the TV viewers on screen — the unfeeling Henry and his slavering accomplice — and any and every movie viewer watching them. That’s a leap apt to be made, or apt to be tried rather, only by those who are prone to overrate the movie. With Michael Rooker. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd