All-American Murder has a fun title harkening back to the 1990s, unfortunately the movie also harkens back to that time period of the low budget STV movies a quasi-name talent attached to draw viewers in.
All-American Murder
(1991)
Genre(s): Horror, Mystery, Crime
Vinegar Syndrome| NR – 93 min. – $34.98 | April 27, 2021
Date Published: 05/12/2021 | Author: The Movieman
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Vinegar Syndrome provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 2¼/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: Artie Lange (CHARLIE SCHLATTER) has a history of getting himself in trouble. He’s been kicked out of every school he’s attended and is no friend of the law, which makes matters extra complicated for his wealthy father, who happens to be a judge. Given one last chance, Artie is shipped off to Fairfield College. But when his new fling, and senator’s daughter, Tally (JOSIE BISSETT), is burned to death by an unknown assailant, suspicion immediately falls on Artie. Adamant of his innocence, he’s granted a 24 hour period by Detective Decker (CHRISTOPHER WALKEN) in which to mask the actual culprit. As his hours of freedom dwindle, the killer strikes again and again…
Quick Hit Review: This low budget horror-mystery (and comedy?) if not for the nudity and sex scenes could’ve easily aired on Lifetime or was based on some R.L. Stine young teen book mainly due to how obvious the culprit was not to mention a college-aged outcast becomes a sleuth (and a bad one at that), not to mention a detective allowing him to do so. But maybe that is the comedic aspect of the film. But outside of the ludicrous premise, there’s not much else to All-American Murder. The performances were, at best, average with the likes of Christopher Walken sleepwalking through his role as the detective. Charlie Schlatter doesn’t have a whole lot of charisma to carry the film but it was fun seeing Richard Kind in a small role as another detective.
All-American Murder I guess has its fans but for myself, albeit I didn’t hate it nor struggled to sit through, might’ve suffered from being lackluster in its horror (one okay gore effect scene), mystery (the killer was obvious from the beginning) or comedy. Maybe in a group setting it’d be entertaining but otherwise, skip. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 2½/5 |
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The Limited Edition version of this release comes with a slip cover (the copy I received did not). The sleeve is reversible revealing the film’s original poster artwork. Audio Commentary with “The Hysteria Continues” trio of podcasters who discuss the film as well as their admiration of aspects of it. Interviews:
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VIDEO – 4/5 |
| All-American Murder comes to Blu-ray presented with a 1.85 widescreen aspect ratio and a new 1080p high-definition transfer taken from a newly scanned and restored 35mm interpositive scanned in 2K. While not exactly a pretty looking picture as detail in some spots looked a tad soft, for a made-for-TV movie from the early 90s, this doesn’t look half bad. Colors are on the darker side but I think that’s how the scenes were lit and other than some minor specs from time to time, does appear to be relatively clean with the natural film grain and noise still retained. |
AUDIO – 3¼/5 |
| The movie is accompanied with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which I found to be acceptable enough but not great. Dialogue comes across just fine but you can discern some hissing and at times the score tops out (and is a bit overbearing). I suspect, as with the picture, this might’ve been a product of the limited budget so I do give this some leniency. |
OVERALL – 2½/5 |
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Overall, All-American Murder has a fun title harkening back to the 1990s, unfortunately the movie also harkens back to that time period of the low budget STV movies a quasi-name talent attached to draw viewers in. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.