Kiss The Girls

Forensic doctor and cop Cross gets heavily involved in a serial killer’s dossier, after his niece becomes one of the psycho’s kidnapped victims. Kate also gets nabbed by this lunatic (the self-professed Cassanova), but quickly escapes and teams up with detective Cross to locate her sick captor and the rest of the victims.

Eerie, dark and effective serial killer thriller. I like to call it SEVEN (10/10) “light”. It certainly has a lot of the qualities of SEVEN, with the competent acting of Freeman, a pretty neat and at times claustrophobic directing style, and a decent “who donnit” twist. Mind you, that’s about where the similarities end. This film goes deeper into the “backdoor” shenanigans of said killer, and shows his techniques and despicable methods of capture. The scene in which Judd gets kidnapped by the psycho is also very terrifying.

The premise of the film is good, and so is most of the build-up, although I did find some of the methods used to find the homicidal maniac a bit far-fetched, the overall film worked for me on a suspense level. The bad guy was totally creepy and mysterious. The plot twists were good, but admittedly full of holes. And the style and acting in the film was top-notch (I’m also a big Ashley Judd fan, so sue me!).

On the down side, I guess that it was a little too much like SEVEN and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (8/10), but without their great plot lines or extreme suspense. Also, the plot did contain many holes, the ending was weak, and Elwes’ Southern accent was awful. But overall, it still works as an effective thriller with some thrills, a couple of chills, and a good night of fun stuff!

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian