Holy crap. I chose "How to be a Serial Killer" as my first movie and almost decided I didn't want to do it anymore. (Spoiler alert below.) The plot according to IMDb:
"A serial killer decides to teach the secrets of his satisfying career to a video store clerk."
I thought it was a pretty awesome premise with a lot of possibilities considering it was a comedy. The main character, Mike Wilson (Dameon Clark), has these stand out moments between scenes where he's standing on a stage presenting as though he's a motivational speaker/magician telling the audience the do's and don'ts of being a serial killer.
Within the first ten minutes we meet Bart (Matthew Gary Gubler). Bart's a mousy video clerk who can't stand up for himself and let's the world ignore and treat him like crap. Mike's in the video store watching Bart taking crap from a customer and decides to take a chance. After a short hussed conversation with Bart, Mike thinks Bart could be his protege and teaches him how to kill.
Let's be clear. Mike's a serial killer, but he does have rules. I honestly don't recall all of them but it was about the gist of:
- Shitty people can be killed,
- Old people might want help dying so go head,
- Don't rape or steal,
- Keep yourself emotionally distant unless you want others to find out.
Oh, and occasionally you get scenes if a psychologist in his office talking about how unfeeling and psychopathic serial killers are. Duh.
::Sigh:: I'm bored just writing this.
You know how sometimes you want to have something on, even it's just going to be background noise? Yea, this movie wasn't even good for that. It was shot as though in the typical way dark comedy's are done. Dark and washed out. Kind of reminded me of how "Clerks" was shot. Personally, I'm a fan of Gubler and overall, I think the acting wasn't horrible. Just bad direction and timing. Mainly, they had a decent story idea, but not a well thought out plot.
SPOILER ALERT
Mike's girlfriend gets suspicious about his sneaking around, he finds he has to killer her. He's distraught and unthinking and goes on the run with Bart. He gets cornered but says Bart's his hostage, thus Mike goes to jail and Bart goes free.
Overall, it was a disjointed movie I had a hard time wanting to finish. Watch if you want, but don't say I recommended it.