The Killing of America
February 13th 2007 01:41
During the late 70s and early 80s a series of shockumentaries were produced, mostly for the Japanese market who relished the mondo death movie (ie Faces of Death, Savage Man Savage Beast, etc). One of them was The Killing of America (1982).
Whereas most of these were purely exploitation flicks, ill-concieved, cheaply produced with staged footage, The Killing of America, which was co-written by Leonard Schrader (brother of Paul Schrader who wrote Taxi Driver) and his wife Chieko, was an American-Japanese co-production which used 100% real footage taken from news archives.
It is a most compelling film. Without glorifying any of its documented cases, it resonates deeper and more profoundly than any of the other mondo ilk. It is the non-sensationalist doco that works in an undeniably sensationalist way. Yes, it shocks. Yes, it disturbs. And yes, it’s flawed and leaves one of the most obvious questions hanging dead in the air … Why does America have such an appallingly inept control of handguns?
The archival footage is what makes the movie so genuinely effective, some truly startling stuff. The narration is spoken in a grave and sombre voice by Chuck Riley, statistic after statistic, most of which are backed up photographs and/or news clips; an attempted murder every 3 minutes, a murder every 20 minutes, 27,000 murders every year, after the Kennedy assassination (yes, the famously graphic Zapruder footage is shown) the murder rate tripled in ten years. Keeping in mind that this film is 25 years old now, the very scary thought is how far these figures have no doubt escalated.
I own an original VHS copy of this film which has suffered over the years; the sound quality has deteriorated something chronic, and much of the archival news footage, which was of dubious quality to begin with looks even more hazy and washed-out now (especially when you’ve become accustomed to the clarity of DVD), however this only adds to the documentary’s disquieting tone. The cover illustration of the Statue of Liberty doubled over clutching a bleeding gun wound to her stomach while she holds a gun in her hand instead of the torch was a striking image indeed.
Some of the doco’s more extraordinary (and chilling) clips are a couple of exclusive interviews with two of the convicted killers; Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian extremist who assassinated Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and whom smiles at first, then breaks down when admitting he wishes the senator was still alive and he wishes for peace in the Middle East.
The other is Ed Kemper, a 6’9” serial killer who threw darts at his mother’s severed head, and who offers a strange insight into the mind of a complete sociopath (he has an IQ of around 140). When asked “What do you think when you see a pretty girl walking down the street?” he replies “One side of me says; ‘I’d like to talk to her, date her’, the other side of me says ‘I wonder how her head would look on a stick.’”
There’s the news footage taken of police running for cover while college sniper Charles Whitman kills people from the vantage point of a Texas park tower in 1966, footage of the appalling race riots of California following the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, the surreal images of the aftermath of Jonestown when Reverend Jim Jones successfully ordered the mass suicide of 900 of his followers at his jungle camp in 1978.
Of special note is the news, photos and courtroom clips of Ted Bundy, one of America’s most notorious serial killers (apparently 36 murders or more) a highly-educated and cunning man, smiling for the cameras in one instance, then losing his cool and wagging his finger at the judge (who, rather inexplicably, after sentencing Bundy to death told him he would’ve made a good lawyer and to take care of himself). Bundy was finally executed in 1989.
For those who don’t know much about American serial killer history (the term was coined during his trial) here is the entire Bundy segment taken from the doco, nightmarishly spellbinding (and not work safe either):
As powerful as this doco is, crucial questions are left on the wayside, such as what is America actually trying to do to quash the out-of-control possession of handguns, and why does America murder so many more of its own than any other country. Still, the doco doesn’t utilise the ironic humour and pranks which Michael Moore injected into his documentary Bowling for Columbine, and for that reason alone it’s all the more frightening.
If anything else The Killing of America is a date stamp, albeit a morbid one. A mirror of horror, chipped and cracked in places, yet still it reflects and will keep on reflecting …
As the crisis only gets worse …
The movie ends with the huge Central Park mass mourning following the murder of John Lennon in 1980 (recent news when this movie was being compiled). It is undeniably moving, yet obviously contrived to illicit a specific emotional response from the viewer (apparently the financers demanded it). Then the voiceover solemnly states, “Two people were shot at this Central Park vigil, while you watched this movie five more of us were murdered, one was the random killing of a stranger.”
It’s a sobering film, all the more chilling with its current statistical implications, and most definitely a modern horror movie. Curiously, the movie has never been distributed, televised, or made available for sale in America.
On a final note; a sequel – or Part 2 - to The Killing of America would obviously paint a much, much darker portrait, especially with the availability of high-resolution digi-cams to every Tom, Dick and Harry, it wouldn’t just be the grainy Super-8 and low-res video footage. The filmmakers could even tie in 9/11, if one is to believe the conspiracy theories. That would surely rank as the ultimate killing of America.
* the images on this page are courtesy of www.worldwidedvdforums.com
Whereas most of these were purely exploitation flicks, ill-concieved, cheaply produced with staged footage, The Killing of America, which was co-written by Leonard Schrader (brother of Paul Schrader who wrote Taxi Driver) and his wife Chieko, was an American-Japanese co-production which used 100% real footage taken from news archives.
It is a most compelling film. Without glorifying any of its documented cases, it resonates deeper and more profoundly than any of the other mondo ilk. It is the non-sensationalist doco that works in an undeniably sensationalist way. Yes, it shocks. Yes, it disturbs. And yes, it’s flawed and leaves one of the most obvious questions hanging dead in the air … Why does America have such an appallingly inept control of handguns?
I own an original VHS copy of this film which has suffered over the years; the sound quality has deteriorated something chronic, and much of the archival news footage, which was of dubious quality to begin with looks even more hazy and washed-out now (especially when you’ve become accustomed to the clarity of DVD), however this only adds to the documentary’s disquieting tone. The cover illustration of the Statue of Liberty doubled over clutching a bleeding gun wound to her stomach while she holds a gun in her hand instead of the torch was a striking image indeed.
Some of the doco’s more extraordinary (and chilling) clips are a couple of exclusive interviews with two of the convicted killers; Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian extremist who assassinated Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and whom smiles at first, then breaks down when admitting he wishes the senator was still alive and he wishes for peace in the Middle East.
There’s the news footage taken of police running for cover while college sniper Charles Whitman kills people from the vantage point of a Texas park tower in 1966, footage of the appalling race riots of California following the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, the surreal images of the aftermath of Jonestown when Reverend Jim Jones successfully ordered the mass suicide of 900 of his followers at his jungle camp in 1978.
For those who don’t know much about American serial killer history (the term was coined during his trial) here is the entire Bundy segment taken from the doco, nightmarishly spellbinding (and not work safe either):
As powerful as this doco is, crucial questions are left on the wayside, such as what is America actually trying to do to quash the out-of-control possession of handguns, and why does America murder so many more of its own than any other country. Still, the doco doesn’t utilise the ironic humour and pranks which Michael Moore injected into his documentary Bowling for Columbine, and for that reason alone it’s all the more frightening.
If anything else The Killing of America is a date stamp, albeit a morbid one. A mirror of horror, chipped and cracked in places, yet still it reflects and will keep on reflecting …
As the crisis only gets worse …
The movie ends with the huge Central Park mass mourning following the murder of John Lennon in 1980 (recent news when this movie was being compiled). It is undeniably moving, yet obviously contrived to illicit a specific emotional response from the viewer (apparently the financers demanded it). Then the voiceover solemnly states, “Two people were shot at this Central Park vigil, while you watched this movie five more of us were murdered, one was the random killing of a stranger.”
It’s a sobering film, all the more chilling with its current statistical implications, and most definitely a modern horror movie. Curiously, the movie has never been distributed, televised, or made available for sale in America.
On a final note; a sequel – or Part 2 - to The Killing of America would obviously paint a much, much darker portrait, especially with the availability of high-resolution digi-cams to every Tom, Dick and Harry, it wouldn’t just be the grainy Super-8 and low-res video footage. The filmmakers could even tie in 9/11, if one is to believe the conspiracy theories. That would surely rank as the ultimate killing of America.
* the images on this page are courtesy of www.worldwidedvdforums.com
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Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
I remember this coming out and the statue of liberty poster.
Unfortunately I was put off seeing it some jerk I was working with at the time. He kept on highlighing the gory bits like it was some kind of thrill for him.
Comment by Ahmed
techy.Bytes
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Qwerk
Cinema Three
High IQ, wierd ideas.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Damo,
curiously the cover of the recent DVD release has the gun replaced back with the torch in Liberty's hand ... which is kinda odd, since the whole visual point was America holding a gun and wounded at the same time ...
Ahmed,
Yeah, Kemper even has a sick sense of humour, he takes off his glasses and puts on his Lennon-like thick-lensed "killer" specs and says to the interviewer "Now, would you accept a lift from a guy who looked like this?"
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
Great review by the way.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Yes, if you're to see any of these kinds of docos, this is definitely one of the better ones, especially as it captures the edge of something (primarily the end of the 70s) ... the 80s and beyond was a whole new bag of bones ....
Comment by Ahmed
techy.Bytes
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Qwerk
Cinema Three
At least we don't get killers like that here in Australia... not yet anyway...
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I remember sneaking to a friends place to see these back in the day and found them both quite startling....the recent DVD release has me tempted but I still haven't grabbed it yet.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Would "An inconvenient truth" count as horror?
Comment by Ahmed
techy.Bytes
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Qwerk
Cinema Three
It's all horror, teletubbies is horror too, they got TV's in their stomach's!
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Ahmed,
I laughed out loud to your comment. Teletubbies, yikes!!!!
Adrian,
yes, of course this doco is horror, crumbs if it wasn't, then I'd be very concerned.
Yes, I suppose An Inconvenient Truth is a lecture in the horror of the present and what the future holds. A kind of apocalyptic end-of-the-world kinda horror doco.
Ahmed,
we do have these kinds of killers in Australia. Read Sins of the Brother, utterly superb book about the Ivan Milat murders. Experts reckon there's a shitload more skeletons up in Queensland near the NSW border that are the work of Milat and/or accomplice(s), which they haven't found yet, they just know of the numerous missing persons and the links to the Belanglo Forest bodies ...
JD,
yeah I wouldn't mind seeing the DVD, as the sound on my VHS has deteriorated badly over the years and I had real trouble with some of what was being said (doesn't help when the audio in the movie itself is of a low quality) ...