SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

daworldismine nightstalker is based on the true story of richard ramirez, a serial killer who was terrorising l.a in the 80's. the real case is fascinating, this movie is not, despite a decent cast, and true life foundations, nightstalker never realises what it wants to be, on one hand its pretty accurate with some of the murders, and the guy playing ramirez is pretty good, but the movie is filled with this hyper editing whenever the nightstalker is in his car, and we see a demon alter ego and its as pathetic as it sounds, too flashy for a low budget movie, and while it aims to be scary and unerving it fails, some scenes of the murders and aftermath are good and atmospheric, and its a shame because it could of been a good movie of the story, but the director just hasent got a clue, so we are left with a film of the two halves and neither of them any good. there is another movie based on the nightstalker buts its supposed to be worse than this so i think ill give it a swerve, shame this story deserves a good movie

purrsnfur I've read a LOT of negative comments on this film here, and for those of you who wrote them I have to say "You're missing the point!" This film was never intended as a true-to-life factual account of the life and crimes of Richard Ramirez, instead it is a fictional piece loosely based on actual events. And although it certainly has it's weak points, it is overall a terrifying journey into the mind of a madman! The drug-induced, heavy metal, head-whipping sequences are a brilliant way to accomplish this, and they really worked for me. The acting was a bit amateurish though, and I didn't care for the way the lady cop was portrayed as blundering and ineffectual throughout most of the film.Even with it's challenges, this film is fascinating-and each time I watch it I discover something I missed in previous viewings. Not to mention, it never fails to send me to my doors and windows to make sure they're securely latched-because as this film so aptly points out, there's a lot of sickos out there!

Malcolm_Riviera If you have an interest in the real Richard Ramirez a.k.a. "The Nightstalker" case, please don't waste your precious time and definitely not your money on this. This movie could possibly have been saved by simply changing the title and character names. You could rename it "The Crack Stalker" and change all the names of the characters -- and you would then at least have a Grade C horror flick to show at 4:00 am on Cinemax. It has all the basic elements of some kind of random serial killer flick, and the killer is certainly a highly unpleasant fellow. But to pass this off as having anything to do with the real Nightstalker case is just plain stupid. On the old Saturday Night Live, critic Leonard Pinth-Garnell might have reviewed this as "Stunningly bad!"

chriskirk2 Why can't they do a "night stalker" movie that doesn't suck? Richard Ramirez is the most terrifying serial murderer of all time. His 14-month, 1984-85 L.A. terror spree changed the world. Your very home was a potentially deadly chamber of horrors if he came around. Ramirez worshiped Satan, and presented cops with the most horrific crime scenes ever. If EVIL exists, RR was it's personification. A great film about the case is possible. 2 crap films have been made about the case-and this is one of them. This movie really sucks. If it weren't for the lovely Roselyn Sanchez; this movie would be totally UN-watchable. TRUTH:Ramirez didn't smoke crack.He shot coke. Ramirez disposed of the guy first. This film ignores that aspect. Ramirez wasn't a white guy, he was Hispanic. Ramirez dressed in black, but didn't emulate Trent Reznor's "Downward Spiral" look. Ramirez was never wounded by his victims. The cops didn't catch Ramirez....They saved Ramirez. Nerds. The filmmakers know the facts of the case(according to the DVD's commentary track), but just chose to distract us with some lame fiction.This film quickly becomes a weak cop-movie. Ramirez is just an incidental character. The demon-flash crap is just a lazy offense to the audience; a short-cut to actual story-telling. The filmmakers "based" this film on "true events", but ignored many fascinating, real events-turning the film into a boring story about a pretty cop experiencing sexual harassment. What's the point of all this? I don't know.This film couldn't have missed the mark any further. As for 1985 period-detail, well, forget it. You get about 5 characters, 4 cars, and 3 settings. This is kid's stuff.