Let me start by saying that this movie is bad. On almost every level it is bad. It’s poorly written. I mean come on someone please explain the difference between the internet, electrical lines, and radio waves to the screenwriter. They clearly lacked a basic understanding of those concepts. Then we have the story itself. It wants to be a slasher, but not really. It wants to be a ghost story, but not quite. It wants to find a balance between comedy and terror. It never achieves it. Yet for some odd reason it’s strangely watchable. Dare I say even enjoyable on some level.
The story resembles Wes Craven’s Shocker but the killer is not fun or interesting like Horace Pinker is in that film. He’s fairly generic. Honestly, as a fan of many 90’s TV shows, I can tell you that the killers on the series Profiler every week were more memorable. Karl Hopkins is a lowly tech at an electronics store by day. By night he is the Address Book Killer. He steals peoples address books and kills his way through them. He then steals a family photo and places it in an album he keeps as a souvenir. Seriously this is the kind of creativity that went into writing this flick.
One night Terry Munroe, poor Karen Allen (Cruising, Indiana Jones franchise, Starman) and her super generic 90’s teenage son, Josh, Wil Hornef (The Shining miniseries), come into the store Karl works at looking for a gift for Terry’s boss. This leads her to buying a program that has, you guessed it, an address book function. After the manager gives her a demo that involves scanning in a page of her own address book, she leaves. The problem, of course, is that she forgot to take her book with her. Soon, Karl, Ted Marcoux (Deadly Relations, Eyes of Terror), is racing through a major rainstorm trying to get to the first victim from Terry’s address book. This leads to some seriously erratic driving, followed by creepy laughter as his car flies off the road and flips over in a cemetery.
He is rushed to the hospital and dies while having an MRI but not before a power surge somehow sends his soul into what I will call the technosphere. At this point he decides to pick up where he left off. Only now he is using technology to kill people, most of which barely makes sense. We get a victim that seems to be boiled or radiated to death after his microwave bursts open while still going. We also get a flame throwing hand dryer. Lastly, let’s not forget the exploding dishwasher that ends up causing the pretty babysitter, Carol, Shevonne Durkin (Leprechaun 2), to get electrocuted. People in 90’s horror sure got electrocuted a lot didn’t they? No really. Think about it.
Along the way mother and son meet Bram Walker, Chris Mulkey (Dreamscape, The Hidden, Jack’s Back, Twin Peaks, Cloverfield), a former hacker turned company man that has come to work for Datanet. This is a company that seems to run basically the entire town they live in for some reason. Like literally, telephones, electrical grids, traffic grids, hospital records. You name it. After what seems like way too brief a gestation period, Terry comes to the conclusion that the killer is coming through technology to off her friends and family. Of course, the police won’t take her seriously, so it’s up to her, her plucky son, and their new hacker friend to take Karl down.
There are some fairly well- known actors in the supporting cast which is worth noting. As Terry’s mother we have the wonderful Jessica Walter (Play Misty For Me, Archer, Arrested Development). Her talents are completely wasted here, although she does provide a bit of comic relief. We also have Brandon Quintin Adams (The People Under the Stairs) as Josh’s best friend.
You may get the impression that I disliked this film. It’s understandable. I did just rip it to shreds after all but frankly, I have a special place in my heart for it. Maybe it’s because my mother took me to see this in the theaters or maybe I just have 90’s nostalgia. Either way I actually own a copy of this film and do watch it from time to time. So I can’t recommend it but I can say that if you can suspend disbelief for an hour and 35 minutes, by all means, plug in and space out.
P.S. The early 90’s saw the first real surge of virtual reality games and tech. Everyone thought it would be the next big thing. Took almost 30 years before that actually came to fruition. The VR scene is pretty cool in a cheesy kind of way. In fact most of the special effects are sort of corny and yet fun. Another fun fact is that the film was directed by Rachel Talalay who also made Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Tank Girl.
The Savage Cinephile 