“I’m interested in how many times you felt it was necessary to say the word normal”
Now here is a nice little oddity. A British-Irish Supernatural Horror film set in America featuring Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd.
Based on the novel of the same name by American author Dan Wells and starring Max Records as troubled and recently a diagnosed sociopath John Wayne Cleaver who is fighting his own homicidal urges that happens to work in his mothers funeral home whilst fascinated with serial killers.
John tries hard to resist his urges to kill and has developed his own techniques when put in situations that test his resolve but things aren’t helped by his sleepy towns current spate of murders.
Due to his interest in serial killers and his job giving him access to the victims he quickly notices a pattern with the murders but his fascination merely increases his odd behaviour that themselves do not go unnoticed by his mother.
Early on in the film the killer is revealed to John and it doesn’t take much for the viewer to work why he is killing either. Something seen before to those of us that have watched plenty of horror so the ‘twist’ when revealed won’t shock anyone but at the same time it isn’t supposed to.
The film is as much about John holding in his own killer urges as it is him trying to stop the killer. He works so hard to do the right thing but is drawn into the exact environment all the work he does is supposed to stop him from entering.
His constant surveillance and then the eventual action he takes keep pushing him closer to a line he doesn’t want to cross.
Dark in tone and humour I am not a serial killer succeeds in doing what we have seen before but offering us something new.
With only a budget of €1,254,470, well that is probably quite large for an Irish film or even a horror these days, I am is a nicely filmed independent horror that uses its not so large but not so small either budget to very good effect.
We all know how filmmakers these days try to do too much with what they have so a bit of restraint here is refreshing.
Christopher Lloyd too is restrained. Don’t expect Doc Brown levels of crazy and over-the-top we have seen in the past.
Here he is an old man living a comfortable existence managing his retirement with his wife as well as his ailments so to speak.
I could watch Christopher Lloyd in anything so it was great to see him try something different.
Overall a fantastic film.
