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Well it finally happened. Three Geek is finally reviewing an independent film that was made right here in Kansas City and about one of our very own serial killers no less, Bob Berdella.

I am having trouble deciding how impressed or disappointed I am with Paul South and William Taft’s “Berdella”. Either way the duo has succeeded in crafting one of the more creepy truly innervating films of recent memory.

South and Taft go at the story of Bob Berdella with a gonzo-ness and bare knuckle attitude that is ultimately refreshing. The key to the success of “Berdella” is that we spend the whole film with Bob Berdella.

Unlike most serial killer films we are not given a reprieve of the mundanely evil Berdella by switching perspectives to that of the determined but soulful detective tracking the deranged killer. Nor are we allowed any amount of succor by maybe spending most of the movie with one of Berdella’s victim and watching he/she try to avoid their demise.

Instead we witness the atrocities that Berdella commits, not necessarily from Berdella’s point of view; for we never know what is going on inside Berdella’s head, but are forced to witness his crimes and wonder at Berdella’s passiveness as he commits them.

Seth Correa gives us an astoundingly iniquitous Bob Berdella, which Berdella no doubt was in real life. The crux of Correa’s performance lies in his utter lack of a performance. Correa suggests the perverseness of Berdella by emphasizing the mundanity of his actions. The flat tone of his voice, with that little high pitch hitch every once and a while, was one of the more effective bits of acting that I have seen in a horror movie in a long while.

South and Taft also decided to do something that is rare in this day and age. Casting their memories back to old John Carpenter and Alfred Hitchcock films, they hired the composer Topp Boom (A name that I am not entirely convinced doesn’t belong in the realm of pseudonyms) and Noah Young. Boom and Young have created a score here that adds much of the atmosphere and horror to the movie. Correa is excellent but without Boom and Young’s thudding bass and screeching strings the movie would not be half as haunting.

Then there’s the cinematography of Rocky Varela, who combines overt stylization with naturalism to give the film its off kilter feel.  At times blatantly avant- garde while at others artfully subtle, “Berdella” is one of the few modern day horror films that know how to frame a shot.

The only real weakness is that “Berdella” starts to devolve towards the end.  Where in the beginning of the film South and Taft used quick cuts and juxtaposition to give the illusion of violence by the end they veered into flat out over the top gore.   I do not know if I can fault them for this though.

It seems to me that maybe South and Taft were  aiming for just that.  In the beginning they give you these tiny mercies such as the aforementioned editing tricks and then force you to see Berdella interact with his victims with just static shots, giving you no sanctuary.  In a way I think I like the film for this.

The ending is a bit abrupt and sort of cheats the audience out of a closure.  Still at the same time, it never turned into twenty minutes of a girl running around a field screaming. The scene being so annoying that although it was only twenty minutes, it felt like four hours… (Tobe Hooper I’m looking your way). They also chose not to end the movie with a shootout between Berdella and the cops where they have some sort of big anticlimactic fight between Berdella and his last victim.

All in all its been some four days since I saw “Berdella” and I have thought about it at least twice every one of those four days, and had a little shiver at the remembrance.  “Berdella” is effective and genuinely creepy and artfully done, a combination sadly lacking in the multimillion dollar gore fest that is Hollywood mainstream horror films.

“Berdella” is good, I mean reallly good.  Taft, South, and company have made a movie that will surely be remembered as an indie classic with “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” only without all the annoying bits of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”…you know what just see, “Berdella”.

www.BobBerdella.com Official Website