Rampage (1987 film)

Plot

Charles Reece is a serial killer who commits a number of brutal mutilation-slayings in order to drink blood as a result of paranoid delusions.

Reece is soon captured. Most of the film revolves around the trial and the prosecutors attempts to have Reece found sane and given the death penalty. Defense lawyers, meanwhile, argue that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity.

The prosecutor, Anthony Fraser, was previously against capital punishment, but he seeks such a penalty in the face of Reeces brutal crimes after meeting one victims grieving family.

In the end, Reece is found sane and given the death penalty, but Frasers internal debate about capital punishment is rendered academic when Reece is found to be insane by a scanning of his brain for mental illness. In the ending of the original version of the film, Reece is found dead in his cell, having overdosed himself on antipsychotics he had been stockpiling. In the ending of the revised version, Reece is sent to a state mental hospital, and in a chilling coda, he sends a letter to a person whose wife and child he has killed, asking the man to come and visit him. A final title card reveals that Reece is scheduled for a parole hearing in six months.

Cast

Influences

Charles Reece is loosely based on serial killer Richard Chase. The crimes that Reece commits are slightly different from Chases, however; Reece kills three women, a man and a young boy, whereas Chase killed two men, two women (one of whom was pregnant), a young boy and a 22-month-old baby. Additionally, Reece escapes at one point - which Chase did not do - murdering two guards and later a priest. However, Reece and Chase similarly had a history of mental illness and an obsession with drinking blood. Unlike Reece, Chase was sentenced to death, but he was found dead in his prison cell, an apparent suicide, before the sentence could be carried out.

Soundtrack

The films score was composed by Ennio Morricone and was released on CD by Virgin Records.

Release

Rampage was originally shot in 1987 in Stockton, California; it played at the Boston Film Festival in September of that year, and ran theatrically in some European countries in the late 1980s. Plans for the films theatrical release in America were shelved when production studio DEG, the distributor of Rampage, went bankrupt. The film was unreleased in North America for five years. Director Friedkin reedited the film, and changed the ending (with Reece no longer committing suicide in jail) before its US release in October 1992. The European video versions usually feature the films original ending.

Home media

As of 2010, the film has been released on DVD only in Poland, by SPI International.