User reviews

I have to agree with the other reviewers. There are several things wrong with this film: The real night stalker killed people of all races, not just hispanics. The focus of the story was not on the killer Ramirez, it was on the fictional character officer Martinez. If it was on Ramirez, we would have seen him watch his sister-in-law's murder at a young age, get in and out of trouble, and watch his progress into a serial killer. There is no background given. Also, the way he was apprehended never happened. I wanted to see the chase through a Latino LA neighbourhood, where locals chased Ramirez, and nearly beat him to death. And the car he was driving - where is the orange Corolla? The appearance of the cast was HORRIBLE. Take a look at detective Elliot (the white guy). Did ANYONE have combed hair in 1985? How about the black detective? Did anyone have a Boston Public bald hairstyle in 1985? All of the women's hairstyle were inaccurate. Yet they kept trying to throw in video clips from Iran and Bhopal India to set the era up. It's amazing they would overlook the casts appearance. The guy who played Ramirez looked the part - except for those pearly whites. The real Ramirez had rotting teeth with a foul odour. Martinez's coke-sniffing partner, played by Danny Trejo did an awful acting job. It was fake & forced. Oh, and they could have afforded to loose all of those demon scenes. They grew tiresome quickly and made me dizzy. 3/10

Nightstalker is a waste of time and money. For starters, it's not even about Richard Ramirez. The main character of the film is a female detective on the hunt for the nightstalker. The other killer films Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Gacy, etc., all have their fair share of fictionalized events but Nightstalker is the most inaccurate of them all. The film dosn't even get his capture right. Instead of getting beat down by an angry mob, which is what really happened, he is arrested by the fictional detective after a shootout. Also, maybe I'm blind but the actor who played Ramirez looked to be white, not hispanic. Dahmer and Ted Bundy, despite their own flaws, are far superior to this piece of trash.

First, its nice to see a horror film that ably represents the Puerto Rican community. What a shame its so terrible. Far more funny than frightening, the killer seems to be a deranged My Chemical Romance fan who has violent delusions that he is Satan. He only murders females, and he likes a bit'o necrophilia after the event. YUCK. The black cop in charge brings in an ethnic gal in on the investigation to combat claims the department isn't 'inclusive' enough, but this little lady doesn't take any crap and refuses to be sidelined. But what will she do when the long-haired goth wannabe targets her? DUN DUN DUNNNNN..

Advice to the director: shaking the camera up and down and putting a rubbish black metal song on in the background does not make a movie scary. Rather, the killer's manic fits and hallucinations that he sees the devil are portrayed so OTT you're be rolling on the floor laughing rather than cowering behind a cushion. You also get the usual clichés of the heroine's elderly partner and mentor in the force being killed, and even the compulsory scene of her having to hand over her gun and badge after messing up. The rampant unoriginality could be forgiven if the rest of the film were up to scratch, but alas it's so boring you'll be itching to turn off the disc and stare at TV static for 90 minutes.

Not recommended, but the disc makes a nice coaster!! *Sips hot beverage* 2/10

This film is absolutely a true pain to watch. Literally!

The other comments have covered all the problems with this movie already, so I will just agree with them. But, it is the painful camera work and editing that truly made me look away from the tv. I understand they were setting the mood for the killer's issues and demons, but they should have let it go after the beginning. It hurt my eyes and I found myself getting more and more disinterested in the actual film premise, which is way off, because of the annoying camera.

And Danny Trejo? God, he was horrible in this. I realize he is not normally academy award material, but c'mon, this was so labored and corny.

Al in all, I would avoid this at all costs. 1 out of 10 rating.

This movie makes Paul W. S. Anderson and Uwe Boll look talented, and their flicks appear enjoyable. Unbelievably, Fisher's "Nighstalker" manages to be, simultaneously, campy and filthy, annoying and dull, unnerving and boring, ridiculous and repulsive. There is really nothing good about it, apart from perhaps the cover and Bret Roberts - the actor who portrays Ramirez (and even he looks - expectedly - embarrassed when the hack "director", Fisher, has him play a flour-covered "vampire" weirdo, which, in Fisher's 12-year-old mentality was intended as a "symbolic" representation of what Ramirez sees in his "possessed" mind during the crime spree).

The "story" is sub-imbecilic and is not in fact even loosely based on the actual events. Fisher's "writing" skills are almost as high as those of a drug-induced 13 year old metalhead, fresh after drinking a sixpack of beer and viewing "House of 1000 Corpses" with his Deicide tape playing right into his ears. In fact, said metalhead would probably write and direct a better movie than Fisher's (well, it certainly could not be any worse!) - at least in *his* film, there would be no unnerving stroboscopic Pokemon "techniques", which Fisher loves so much.

As far as the director's "factual" treatment and "research" go, this flick's script was apparently based on Fisher's experience of trying to read a short, misspelled summary of an article reviewing a book with a chapter whose part described a documentary about comic books depicting serial killers, who happened to include Ramirez. Fisher's directing is, if possible, even worse than his "writing" - often, this flick is simply unwatchable, with its shaky, chaotic camera movement and ridiculous (and nauseatingly long) high-speed segments set to obnoxious, vomit-inducing, ear-shattering noise which Fisher apparently considers to be "music" (and which in fact did not even exist in 1985 - Night Stalker would listen to the likes of AC/DC and Springsteen, not some antitalent, late 1990s Death Metal bands).

The only potentially redeeming aspect of this movie might be the fact that, much like Ed Wood's movies (which are, of course, infinitely better, involve much more talent, decent music and superior directing), it often manages to be unintentionally funny. For instance, Fisher often makes an infantile attempt at inserting cheap "ambience" into scenes by filling their backgrounds with repeated white noise and incomprehensible mumbling done in a low bass. He intends this mumbling to be the "voice of Satan", but it sounds exactly like the Psychlos from John Travolta's

Therefore, every time I heard Fisher's "Satan", I would think "Ooh-oh, it's Travolta the Terl!" and burst out laughing. Fisher's ludicrous image of "Satan" himself - the aforementioned flour-covered bald Howard the Duck reject with sharp teeth - made the scenes even funnier.

As for the DVD itself, there were some deleted scenes (even though the whole film should have been one deleted scene), a trailer, a bit better than the flick itself (in the same sense as gonorrhea is better than AIDS), plus a commentary track from Mr Antitalent himself, Chris Fisher (at least I've read that there is a commentary, on the DVD box - I did not actually listen to it, since I have no intention to hear talentless dolts drone about themselves.)

A while ago I bought the DVD with the TV film about Ramirez ("Manhunt") from Amazon Europe, and any second of that film highly surpasses Fisher's lameness. I never thought I could see someone less talented than Paul W. S. Anderson and Uwe Boll actually find employment in Hollywood - but today I saw him, and his name was "Chris Fisher".

This movie uses the Jacob's Ladder neck-spasm-melting-face shot at least 50 times. The whole affair struck me as a bunch of badly thought out and cheaply executed gimmick effects shots strung together by an inaccurate and largely aimless plot. There is nothing worthwhile holding the movie together, nor is there anything decisive about it or it's construction. It has all the depth of a commercial for soap powder and the thoughtfulness and presence of mind of a butternut squash. I'd imagine it could be compressed into four or five frames without losing any information.

About as demanding of the viewer as an hour and a half of television static, though slightly less thought provoking. I can usually find something to like in any movie, but this one is total pap. Avoid at all costs, unless you're a fourteen year old pothead who likes to chew sand and electrocute himself, in which case you might enjoy it.

One night I was home alone and figured "hey, nice change to go rent a horror movie !".I was actually thinking of taking some jap horror movie but instead I made the big mistake of taking this awful excuse for a horror!!! Don't ask me what I was thinking 'cause I'm still figuring that out myself !.Now let me tell you that I have never heard of this whole "nightstalker" phenomenon before, so I wasn't looking for a serial killer biography,and I don't know how close to the truth this was.But I guess the box looked promising so I took this one, something I would soon regret ! Well,the first killing scene was pretty nicely done.But from that part onward the movie totally slides downward and fails to keep any form of suspense.Instead, those " say you love Satan " lines sounded so dumb I already wrote the movie off.And then you have all these flashy moments which I suppose were made for atmosphere but they only end up being annoying.But the the dumb and boring ending was really the nail in the coffin.

Even to this day I'm cursing myself for picking the wrong movie!Don't make the same mistake I made people !!!!!!!!!!!

When I picked this up at local video store, I was under the impression that it was going to be based on fact (the true story). I should have read the box a little closer. The writer used the "scenario" of nightstalker killings and threw in his own "what if" storyline. The acting was terrible, yet special effects were good. Set design very good. Makeup excellent. Lots of pre-p/c innuendos. Way too much filler! Overall a big snore & just stupid. Had they spent as much money on the script as they did special effects, could've been much better. Oh yea, forgot to say VERY PREDICTABLE! Factual made-for-tv version much better & believe me... that's not saying much!

Having lived in L.A. in 1985, I can tell you that this bad film in no way attempts to tell the real story. No one in the summer of '85 in and around L.A. kept their window up at night. Everyone, men as well as women, were scared to death. What this film does is trivialize all of this for a buck. Nothing in this film is even close to what happened. The heavy metal background music gave me a headache. The acting was awful, and, what a mess. If you want to know the real story behind the killings in L.A. in 1985, keep an eye on A&E channel. They did a really good documentary on the Nightstalker, which covered his childhood up until his conviction. But stay away from this piece of garbage.

Why can't they do a "night stalker" movie that doesn't suck? Richard Ramirez is the most terrifying serial murderer of all time. His 14-month, 1984-85 L.A. terror spree changed the world. Your very home was a potentially deadly chamber of horrors if he came around. Ramirez worshiped Satan, and presented cops with the most horrific crime scenes ever. If EVIL exists, RR was it's personification. A great film about the case is possible. 2 crap films have been made about the case-and this is one of them. This movie really sucks. If it weren't for the lovely Roselyn Sanchez; this movie would be totally UN-watchable. TRUTH:Ramirez didn't smoke crack.He shot coke. Ramirez disposed of the guy first. This film ignores that aspect. Ramirez wasn't a white guy, he was Hispanic. Ramirez dressed in black, but didn't emulate Trent Reznor's "Downward Spiral" look. Ramirez was never wounded by his victims. The cops didn't catch Ramirez....They saved Ramirez. Nerds. The filmmakers know the facts of the case(according to the DVD's commentary track), but just chose to distract us with some lame fiction.This film quickly becomes a weak cop-movie. Ramirez is just an incidental character. The demon-flash crap is just a lazy offense to the audience; a short-cut to actual story-telling. The filmmakers "based" this film on "true events", but ignored many fascinating, real events-turning the film into a boring story about a pretty cop experiencing sexual harassment. What's the point of all this? I don't know.This film couldn't have missed the mark any further. As for 1985 period-detail, well, forget it. You get about 5 characters, 4 cars, and 3 settings. This is kid's stuff.

Richard Ramirez was a man who raped, killed, and mutilated women, that was his goal. Instead of chronicling (and glorifying) his murders one-by-one in a "made for tv" sort of fashion, this movie attempts to tell a story about a woman who is trying to survive in the world of men. This movie is about what Ramirez' hated, not about Ramirez himself. He is clearly the antagonist, the evil, the literal and metaphorical enemy of the woman played by Roselyn Sanchez. In fact, I can't recall ever hearing or seeing the name "Richard Ramirez" in the film at all.

The biggest problem I had with the film is the way in which the videobox misrepresented the story as "this is his story". It is not his story, but I doubt the producers ever intended it to be his story as it seems very clearly to be a comment on society instead of a fact-based docudrama meant to air on A&E. Like SON OF SAM, this movie uses a true to life serial killer to engage other issues.

That said, is the film entirely successful? No, it has it's share of problems, but is nevertheless an interesting and challenging piece of work. Some of the problems are... The plot doesn't flow at times and the film feels longer than it actually is. The police work is not accurate enough to give a sense of gritty, police-reality.

However, there are many positive elements... The hyper-active editing and sound design succeed in portraying Ramirez' schizophrenic, epileptic, drugged out nature, but they do make the film hard to watch at times. However, this stylistic choice is form following function and you really feel like you are riding along with the killer. The use of real life footage chronicling catastrophic events of the 80's adds an impending sense of doom. The acting is generally believable and Roselyn Sanchez really shines.

Night stalker is a very creepy & grimy low-budget Horror-Thriller,it's unnerving at times & disturbing especially when you see how crazy-evil this guy was!!!

The look of this based-on-real-life Horror flick is very gloomy,dark,grimy & gritty.LA at night looks scary as hell, the night time scenes are so well shot it felt so unnerving seeing those empty late night streets surrounded in darkness except for some dim & gloomy light,very atmospheric. The low-budget helped the trashy-grim look & raw tone.

One of my favourite actors ever,the cult hero Danny Trejo has a nice little role as a good-wise Cop named Frank Luis who is partnered up with the main lead of this film officer Gabriella Martinez played excellently by Roselyn Sanchez, she's a good person & a good police officer but is discriminated against for Being a "women" & a very beautiful lady too. This is all set in 1985 so you get the feel of what it was like to be a lady of the force & how they was treated by fellow officers & superiors. But Martinez is a smart & tough cop & she does make a good lead in this disturbing horrific situation.

The cast is solid & the evil,sadistic killer is scary & pathetic at the same time!!! This is based on true crime but I'm not sure how accurate it is? But it's definitely an engrossing Horror Thriller. This is a police procedural crime Thriller with pure Horror elements because of the sicko's horrific crimes. A very good movie.

This movie was horrible. I mean, now all these murders happened just a couple days after I was born, so, I wouldn't know the story. But I know that they probably over embellished. I wasn't happy with the movie, I hope I can get my $4.00 back from "Hollywood Video".

2/10

This film made me feel travel sick from the start. I was expecting horror, gore and action i got neither!! The story only covered about 4 days of his life and hardly featured anything of any real importance at all it didn't give any background on him and it didn't show any detective work in detail.

Waste of my time!!

well I had hoped for more from this movie..

I see this movie was highly rated by both Fangoria and sundance..I'm not sure why.

The story is based loosely on the true story of Richard Ramirez.

Basically this guy smokes crack and we see through some kind of neat effects that he is tormented and a possible schizophrenic,as he goes around killing people and raping.It is not very graphic,and has a lot of logic flaws and underdeveloped characters.The "crack head effect" is cool but overused.

I thought the ending was its weakest moment and the start its best.Thhis could have been a lot more.

Just worth watching.

This is not going down as one of the all-time greats. Hey, I was just looking for a Danny Trejo fix until Machete comes out. He played a don't-give-a-damn cop here that was not as raw as I usually see him.

His partner, before she transferred to Homicide, was the ever luscious Roselyn Sanchez, who plays Elena on "Without a Trace." She is the feature of this movie, except for, of course Nightstalker and his ever-present buddy, Demon. I only mention them in passing as they are the main characters. They really don't do much. Everything is pretty much off-camera here and the movie deserved no more that a PG-13 rating for the violence. There was no sexuality, despite the MPAA claim. I doubt they even watched it as they would be immediately put off by the Death Metal music and the absolutely irritating camera work that was supposed to show what the Nightstalker was seeing and feeling as he operated high on crack. I suppose that was the intention; it was just plain irritating. Maybe they though the Satanic symbols were too much for the little ones, and they didn't want to be accused of offending someone's religion. Who knows? I got my Trejo fix, and got to see Sanchez (always fully clothed), so who cares.

Danny Trejo was a co-producer of this film. Tood bad he didn't remember his other 138 films and give us more reason to watch.

Some people just don't know how to make a movie. Nightstalker trades any attempt at a decent narrative for cliched, washed up editing techniques. Only a few shots and scenes really stood out. The acting is okay. To say that the film is inspired by a true story is like saying Pearl Harbor was inspired by a true story - WWII happened but that's about the extent of the truth. In Nightstalker, the writers have made up a stupid excuse for you to sit through an hour and a half of an insipid, grade school level story about all the evil in the world. Watch Seven, or for that matter watch most anything else.

This film is excellent. Forget about the actual real-life case. This is loosely based on it. It is a really good film with serious, no-nonsense acting. The cinematography is complex and adds to the plot, which it is supposed to do. Everything in the film is not what you usually see or expect. The female officer is harassed in a sexual way by a fellow officer, but she ignores it. This is not political correctness. Far from it. The drug use by the stalker and then by officers of the law is an interesting comparison magnified by the special effects after each inhalation. The same thing is done before a killing by stalker and by officers. This is not a simple film, and it's done well. The ending! I really liked this film alot. It's excellent. 10

From frame 1, I had a premonition that "Nightstalker" would be another completely worthless addition to the inexplicably popular subgenre of direct-to-video pseudo-documentaries of serial killers ("Ed Gein," "Ted Bundy," "Dahmer," "Speck," "Gacy," etc.), and I was absolutely right. After about 30 minutes, I found myself fast-forwarding through this muck in search of something of interest, but found nothing. Skimming the other comments posted here, I'm glad I'm not the only one who raised an eyebrow at the Latino female empowerment plot fronting as a would-be expose on Richard Ramirez--it's more the tale of one woman's (trite, trite, trite) oppression by society because of her ethnicity, and how she overcomes it to reel in a psycho (please, sell it to Lifetime). Not that there'd be anything wrong with this revisionist history if the characters were well-developed and made to deliver strong dialogue, but no--the director utilizes the tried-and-true gimmick of the talentless--known as 'the music-video edit'--to stand in for character development and suspense; godawful death-metal plays over rapid-fire cuts of white demons, crack pipes, and rape scenes, which translates into annoyance, not menace. Pathetic, subpar acting puts the final nail in the coffin of this garbage. Avoid at all costs.

zero/10