Beautiful LAPD detective Amber Smith and her male partner investigate a series of murders that appear to have been committed by a serial killer known as "The Baptist". But Smith had already killed "The Baptist" one year earlier. Did she kill the wrong man or is this the work of a copycat? In the course of the investigation, Smith and her partner have an encounter with an eccentric female sex therapist, and that whole sequence seems totally absurd at the time, but it builds some sexual tension between the two women which later erupts in a VERY HOT lesbian scene in the therapist's luxurious pool. If this movie is worth renting at all, it is for that scene alone. Smith is less than believable as a cop, but she's not aggressively bad. The real problem with "Crime Scene" is that it has been badly overdirected. The rapid zooms, the freeze-frames, the shaky camera and all those other gimmicks that DellaBarre uses call attention to themselves and add nothing to the film. Really annoying - and DellaBarre doesn't let up on it for a minute. Maybe he thought he was the next Oliver Stone or something. (*1/2)
3 Reviews
Yes, it's another erotic thriller, but maybe no thanks
augustian21 May 2017
Glamour model Amber Smith plays Charlie, a detective on the trail of a serial (aren't they all?) killer in this run-of the-mill erotic thriller. The killer has all the hallmarks of a killer known as The Baptist, but he was killed a year previously by Charlie. Has he come back from the dead? Was he the wrong man? If you have seen this type of film before then you have probably guessed the outcome with its twist at the end, but at leas there are some hot nude scenes to stir the blood. This though, is not really enough to compensate for the terrible camera-work.
The problem is with the director, Eric DelaBarre who uses all sorts of camera gimmickry in the course of the film - and too many times. We get fast motion, quick-fire montages, zooming, but the worst aspect is the shaky camera - it's too much. Hint to all film-makers: just because you have lots of buttons, switches and knobs on your cameras and editing suites, it is not compulsory to use them all. In conclusion, the eye-candy is, well, eye-candy but as for the rest of the film, no thanks.
The problem is with the director, Eric DelaBarre who uses all sorts of camera gimmickry in the course of the film - and too many times. We get fast motion, quick-fire montages, zooming, but the worst aspect is the shaky camera - it's too much. Hint to all film-makers: just because you have lots of buttons, switches and knobs on your cameras and editing suites, it is not compulsory to use them all. In conclusion, the eye-candy is, well, eye-candy but as for the rest of the film, no thanks.
The director humiliates himself
MBunge16 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
You know, it's not like this thing was going to be any good in the first place. They cast some low rent magazine model in the starring role and she was either so terrible or so lazy they ended up letting some no-name professional extra do most of the scenes without her. The plot makes about as much sense as tits on a bull and some of the scenes just ramble on and on for so long it feels like being stuck in a Mobius loop of crap. But as bad as all the rest of it is, you barely notice it because of the aggressively irritating direction of Eric DelaBarre.
Charlie (Amber Smith) is female police detective in LA with a slightly manish face and a hairdo that looks like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. A couple years ago, Charlie killed a guy who was suspected of being a serial killer called "The Baptist". Now, victims killed in the same way are turning up and Charlie and her partner Scott (Cortney Allen) investigate. Well, Scott's the only one who investigates. Even though Charlie is clearly the main character of the story, she's absent for long stretches of time for no reason. That leaves Scott to do everything himself, even though it turns out nothing he does has anything to do with solving the case.
About the only thing Charlie does is accompany Scott to interview Dr. Morgan Chase (Billy Jean Kirkland), a sex therapist they think may be treating the person responsible for the new killings. The moment that Charlie and Dr. Case meet, you know these two women are going to wind up having sex and they do, but for far too brief a time. The two of them going at it is the only remotely appealing scene in this film and it's over in about 30 seconds.
Eventually, Charlie discovers that the best way to track down a serial killer is to act like a drunk slut and then the movie ends with a twist that's so poorly executed I'm not entirely sure what the twist exactly was.
There's so much that's so wrong with Crime Scene, but it all pales in comparison to the awesomely anxious and gagingly derivative direction of DelaBarre. It's like he was strapped down, had his eye lids taped open, forced to watch a non-stop marathon of every episode of NYPD Blue and then he was dosed with enough amphetamines to make a donkey win the Kentucky Derby. There's so much camera movement that at times it seems like the tripod is broken. It zooms in, it zooms out, it shakes, it staggers, there are freeze frames and slow motion and quick edits and a montage that looks like something from the TV show Friends. DelaBarre couldn't have made his presence behind the camera any more aggravating apparent if he has superimposed a image of his genitals over the face of every actor in the film. Oh, and do you remember how NYPD Blue would transition from one scene to another by showing a bit of NYC street life? Well, I couldn't quite keep track but I believe this movie has about 5 billion of those transitions.
There's some female nudity here and Billy Jean Kirkland gives a melodramatic performance that's about a thousand times better than anything else in this production, but it's nowhere near enough to justify watching this offal. Yeah, this is another film so bad I had to break out the thesaurus.
Please don't watch this.
Charlie (Amber Smith) is female police detective in LA with a slightly manish face and a hairdo that looks like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz. A couple years ago, Charlie killed a guy who was suspected of being a serial killer called "The Baptist". Now, victims killed in the same way are turning up and Charlie and her partner Scott (Cortney Allen) investigate. Well, Scott's the only one who investigates. Even though Charlie is clearly the main character of the story, she's absent for long stretches of time for no reason. That leaves Scott to do everything himself, even though it turns out nothing he does has anything to do with solving the case.
About the only thing Charlie does is accompany Scott to interview Dr. Morgan Chase (Billy Jean Kirkland), a sex therapist they think may be treating the person responsible for the new killings. The moment that Charlie and Dr. Case meet, you know these two women are going to wind up having sex and they do, but for far too brief a time. The two of them going at it is the only remotely appealing scene in this film and it's over in about 30 seconds.
Eventually, Charlie discovers that the best way to track down a serial killer is to act like a drunk slut and then the movie ends with a twist that's so poorly executed I'm not entirely sure what the twist exactly was.
There's so much that's so wrong with Crime Scene, but it all pales in comparison to the awesomely anxious and gagingly derivative direction of DelaBarre. It's like he was strapped down, had his eye lids taped open, forced to watch a non-stop marathon of every episode of NYPD Blue and then he was dosed with enough amphetamines to make a donkey win the Kentucky Derby. There's so much camera movement that at times it seems like the tripod is broken. It zooms in, it zooms out, it shakes, it staggers, there are freeze frames and slow motion and quick edits and a montage that looks like something from the TV show Friends. DelaBarre couldn't have made his presence behind the camera any more aggravating apparent if he has superimposed a image of his genitals over the face of every actor in the film. Oh, and do you remember how NYPD Blue would transition from one scene to another by showing a bit of NYC street life? Well, I couldn't quite keep track but I believe this movie has about 5 billion of those transitions.
There's some female nudity here and Billy Jean Kirkland gives a melodramatic performance that's about a thousand times better than anything else in this production, but it's nowhere near enough to justify watching this offal. Yeah, this is another film so bad I had to break out the thesaurus.
Please don't watch this.
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