The Rockville Slayer (DVD)

“Small town, big body count”, proclaims the tagline, leading one to believe that this is a slasher flick. The presence of scream queen Linnea Quigley and the opening shot of make-out couples in parked cars getting slain will also add to the illusion… but don’t be fooled.

After a series of brutal killings that fell the community’s best and brightest students, outside law enforcement is called in to get to the bottom of the heinous crimes. Amy Rodgers (slap a pair of black-framed specs on young and pretty Nicole Buehrer, and suddenly she’s supposed to be a dowdy detective) and her bland partner Michael Brophy (Joe Morowitz) pair up with the Barney Fife’esque town sheriff, Duncan (Joe Estevez) to flush out the killer.

The Rockville Slayer is a very poorly acted, slow-moving film that focuses mainly on the introspective, weepy characters who reside in the small town (which just happens to have its own insane asylum — and the requisite escaped inmate). The story, which is clumsy yet reasonably well-written for the most part, starts off in one direction then veers off to a completely different destination with no explanation whatsoever for the puzzling detour. This is fine if the movie is all about twists and turns, but The Rockville Slayer is little more than a standard, low-budget police procedural.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson