13. Sea of Love (1989) C-112m
The last thing that alcoholic detective Al Pacino needs as he goes through a mid-life crisis is a serial killer who lies his/her naked male victims face down on the bed and puts a bullet behind their ears while the record player pumps out the old 1959 Phil Phillips 45 rpm classic The Sea of Love, over and over.
Will the case take Al over the edge that he is already precariously balancing on? Will the stunning blonde chief suspect (Ellen Barkin) screw him to death before he solves the mystery? Will a detective he works with, who is married to Al's ex-wife, end up putting a bullet in him for pestering them at all hours of the night when he's fallen down the eye of a Jim Beam bottle? Will the serial killer get him?
It's almost enough to get Al off the turps but when he teams up with another hard-drinking cop (John Goodman) that doesn't seem possible as they lead each other through one drunken escapade after another in the pursuit of evidence to nail the Sea of Love killer.
Sounds corny? Trust me, it isn't. It's anything but. This is hard-core, racy drama at its best and there's not a boring or cornball moment in it. And don't tell your friends who the serial killer is. Let 'em guess.
14. Copycat (1995) C-125m
Now here's a serial killer movie with a difference. A serial killer who copies other serial killers. That's right. In this highly entertaining but somewhat dubious murder spree we have a psychopath on the loose who is re-enacting the murders of such famous bygone American serial killers as Son of Sam, Theodore "Ted" Bundy and the Hillside Strangler.
Our killer re-enacts the murders down to the last detail and in the process terrorises agoraphobic psychiatrist Sigourney Weaver who is a world authority and lecturer on serial killers. Traumatised Sigourney's terror of leaving her home is justified in that she was attacked and strangled half to death by a demented hillbilly serial killer (Harry Connick Jnr) in a public toilet and even though he is locked away forever she fears that he will come back and get her. And what with a re-enacting serial killer on the loose ... guess what happens?
If you don't look too intensely at the plot and find the holes that you could drive a jumbo jet through, then this could be the movie for you.
15. The Bone Collector (1999) C-117m
Welcome to the world of mega-high-tech serial killer catching. And somehow director Phillip Noyce plausibly pulls it off without his hero, serial-killer super sleuth extraordinaire, Denzel Washington, the NYPD's leading forensics expert, laying a finger on the villain.
This is mainly due to the fact that Denzel is a quadriplegic confined to his bed at home and surrounded by nurses and so much computer and surveillance equipment that his electricity bill must eat up every cent of his medical insurance.
Mr Bone Collector conducts his grisly business in New York's nether-world and with pouting policewomen Angelina Jolie standing in for him, Denzel guides her through an earpiece and watches her every move from a camera in her helmet as they pursue the latest in the seemingly never ending procession of New York's periodical multicidists.
No real surprises in this one but very cleverly made and very suspenseful. It also leaves you wondering if it really could happen. The policeman tracking down a demented serial killer from his bed, that is. Still, stranger things have happened. Professor Stephen Hocking is a classic example. If you watch The Bone Collector with this in mind it makes for a much more entertaining movie rather than sitting there picking holes in it, which is very easy to do.
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