As a Hillside Strangler buff I decided to buy this DVD ($5 at Blockbuster). I was blown away by the inaccuracies of the story, to the point of fraudulence. This is not really the Hillside case at all. The time-line is completely off (events happen waaay out of sequence to real life), and the Brittany Daniel (main) character is at best an amalgamation of a number of characters, and at worst a complete fabrication (not a good sign in a fact based movie when the lead character never existed!). And oddly, the story is told from her point of view, with an odd story-line about coke deals and sex parties. If I had a nickel for every movie with a lesbian criminal psychiatrist who looks like a model, does coke, throws sex parties at her home in the Hollywood Hills and does interrogations with her top open...
But worst of all, the movie fails to capture the essence of the story (one of the most bizarre and interesting cases ever, from beginning to end), what made the killers "tick" and worst of all disregards the victims by basically phasing them out of the narrative. On top of that, the film-making is amateurish (you'll need to down a bottle of Dramamine due to the camera that NEVER STOPS SWIRLING AROUND) and unsteady.
On the plus side, the performances by Clifton Collins, Jr. and Brittany Daniel are good. Though she isn't given much material to work with (many of her scenes involve her "thinking" aka staring off into space), she is sometimes engaging and always nice to look at. If you're really interested in Hillside, the best movie on it is The Case of the Hillside Stranglers, the 1989 made for TV flick with Richard Crenna, Dennis Farina & Billy Zane -Zane's performance in particular nails the Bianchi character much better than Rampage, and Crenna and Farina are excellent as well. The story also has more to do with the victims, and also with the toll the case took on the cops involved. Of course, that movie doesn't have long nude scenes w/ Brittany Daniel, so you'll have to choose.
But worst of all, the movie fails to capture the essence of the story (one of the most bizarre and interesting cases ever, from beginning to end), what made the killers "tick" and worst of all disregards the victims by basically phasing them out of the narrative. On top of that, the film-making is amateurish (you'll need to down a bottle of Dramamine due to the camera that NEVER STOPS SWIRLING AROUND) and unsteady.
On the plus side, the performances by Clifton Collins, Jr. and Brittany Daniel are good. Though she isn't given much material to work with (many of her scenes involve her "thinking" aka staring off into space), she is sometimes engaging and always nice to look at. If you're really interested in Hillside, the best movie on it is The Case of the Hillside Stranglers, the 1989 made for TV flick with Richard Crenna, Dennis Farina & Billy Zane -Zane's performance in particular nails the Bianchi character much better than Rampage, and Crenna and Farina are excellent as well. The story also has more to do with the victims, and also with the toll the case took on the cops involved. Of course, that movie doesn't have long nude scenes w/ Brittany Daniel, so you'll have to choose.