“THE VIRGIN MURDERS” (2008)

Starring: Elias Castillo, Aneliese Roettger, Shane Dean, Nomiki Konst, David C. Hayes, Pat Giglio, Liana Hubbard, Tina Randolph McCulloch, Jeff Dolniak, Amy Searcy, Andrew Scully, Kelly D’Amato, Alana Porter & Sami Goodrum
Written by Raven Blackwood & Tina Randolph McCulloch
Directed by Tina Randolph McCulloch

Polly Staffle Rating: ***

Not only is journalist Victor Marquez suffering from writer’s block, the lead character in Tina Randolph McCulloch’s debut feature “The Virgin Murders” has the world as he knows it crumbling before his very eyes. He is in the middle of an ugly divorce and custody battle, and his boss wants to fire him. Now after watching a video of a young woman being raped and murdered, things start to get worse. Victor becomes engulfed by darkness as the poor victim on the snuff tape, crying for help gets burned into his psyche.

Played by the charismatic Elias Castillo (“Death Row,” “San FranPsycho”), Victor should know a thing or two about facing down demons. After all, he does write for a paranormal publication known as Darkzine. He is always in search of a new sick and twisted story. One of his upcoming stories is on a cult called the Modified and Pierced Soldiers of the Almighty, who have a church in the middle of the desert in honor of the Crucified Unification of the Flesh. But having seemingly dealt with plenty of urban legends, kooks, freaks, vampires, morning television shows, ghosts and other out-of-this-world entities, it’s now the more tangible demons that are destroying Victor.

The first demonic force causing havoc for him is his psychological addiction to alcohol. It’s already cost him his licenses, his wife and his daughter. It now is possibly costing him his career, as well as his life. How bad does this guy need rehab? The first thing Victor does after clocking in at work is hit the bottle, and when he meets contacts for potential leads, he does so at a bar called the Thirsty Coyote - a place where everyone knows his name.

Have the stories he’s covered led to his predicament or has the booze aided him in his quest for super natural scoops? It isn’t really clear, but it can be certain that the alcohol is not helping. “When I research things, sometimes I get a little caught up in it,” Victor says of a time he bit a woman while working on a vampire piece. “I wasn’t entirely sober at the time,” he adds.

The other demon haunting Victor is a girl by the name of Madison Miller (played by Scream Queen Aneliese Roettger). Desperately in search of a story, Victor turns to his best friend Kyle Brooks (Shane Dean), a detective who recently stumbled upon a seemingly real murder caught on tape during a drug bust. Kyle offers the video nasty to Victor as a reference for an article on whether snuff films exist. “I have to warn you in advance; this tape is very disturbing,” Kyle says. “It’s very graphic, and very real, and you can’t watch something like that without being affecting by it in some deep way.”

Victor watches the tape. On it, Madison Miller is sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death by a Satanic-looking, black-hooded figure that sounds like Jigsaw. And though the watching of the tape doesn’t lead to a girl coming out of his television set, it does disturb Victor to no end – much like any time I watch Darren Aronofsky’s director’s cut of “Requiem for a Dream.” (Oh, god, make it stop!)

Victor becomes obsessed with the tape. Who is the girl? Why was she killed? Who is this black knight performing these hideous acts on her? He watches the tape over and over. The images from the tape then play over and over in Victor’s head. He sees Madison Miller every where. As his writing deadline draws nearer and the visions of Madison becoming more intense, Victor’s life spins more and more out of control… until everything comes crashing down in the violent conclusion of “The Virgin Murders.”

Overall, McCulloch has crafted a pretty damn good film. It’s not perfect, but what movie made on a budget of $5,000 raised with concerts and mud wrestling events ever is? Shot in and around Arizona’s Valley of the Sun (Phoenix, Chandler, Mesa and Tempe), “The Virgin Murders” features a solid cast and a great soundtrack. Castillo - reminiscent of Lou Diamond Phillips crossed with Chuck Williams - carries the film, while Nomiki Konst and David C. Hayes turn in good performances as the film’s voices of reason. And when the soundtrack isn’t filled with blood-curdling screams from Roettger and Sami Goodrum, McCulloch has it blasting industrial, rap and electronica, including the fantastic song “She” by Mankind Is Obsolete, which opens the film.

What I didn’t like about the “The Virgin Murders,” however, was there were elements that didn’t get fully explored. There are cults, there are vampires and there is a serial rapist/killer on the loose, yet none of these things provided much in the department of scares. Yes, I realize this is a psychological film along the lines of “American Psycho” and what we see, isn’t necessarily what we get, but toying with these elements more would have upped the film’s tension level. The film moves very briskly, so slowing down for a few more moments of terror wouldn’t hurt at all.

What “The Virgin Murders” does serve up though is a surreal vision of sex and violence that plays with our perceptions from start to finish. For that I applaud McCulloch, who co-wrote, directed and also acted in the movie. Judging by “The Virgin Murders” alone, I think she will have a fine career behind the camera. I also applaud her for not shying away from tough subject matters and applaud her for delivering an intelligent horror-tinged project. Lastly, I applaud McCulloch for her attempt at shocking her audience, while making a statement on the depravity of society.

- CCF, December 2008