BEFORE: Well, now that December is almost here and there are 11 films left after tonight, it's no time for changes, it's nearly last call on Movie Year 16. If anyone's going to qualify for the year-end countdown who hasn't had three appearances yet, now would be the time. Owen Wilson's already in, and so is Brian Cox, but they can both climb one notch higher tonight - one moves up from 3 appearances to 4, and the other from 4 to 5. Let's see if anyone else makes the countdown based on tonight's film.
Owen Wilson carries over from "Free Birds". It may seem a little strange to follow a silly kids' animated film about time-traveling turkeys with a dark film about a serial killer, but the linking is what it is at this point, I can't program by subject matter right now, here at the tail end of the year. It was just about this time last year, two or three films after Halloween, when I watched "The Mean Season", another film about a serial killer - and neither film seemed really scary enough to qualify as horror.
THE PLOT: Aimless Vann SIegert takes a bizarre turn in life and becomes a serial killer, tracking down the miserable, the self-destructive and those who otherwise seem willing to die.
AFTER: My first thought was that I don't really buy Owen Wilson as a serial killer, he seems too chill, too unassuming, too West Coast "good vibes" to kill someone. Sure, this was made back in 1999, when he hadn't slipped into that "cool Dad" mode, maybe he was still a little rough around the edges and could fit the profile. Nope, he's really chill in this movie, too, almost at a McConnaughey level of West Coast surfer dude - but maybe that's the point here, anybody could be a serial killer, and this is a killer who drives around looking for people who are unhappy, to learn more about them and help them "transition" to a more peaceful state. Yeah, that tracks and it feels very California, doesn't it?
It's a weird coincidence that my wife has been watching some streaming series about FBI cases all week, like the Oklahoma City bombing and the McDonald's Monopoly game investigation, but somewhere in the middle of it was an episode about the Golden State Killer, and I'd already watched a whole HBO series about that one, called "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" so I already knew how that one ended, how they tracked down the killer based on DNA that had been submitted to genetic testing sites by his family members. Also, they figured that the long gap in his killing spree meant that he spent time in prison, and from the torture methods they'd determined that he had police training at some point. That's how they do it, they keep narrowing down the field until there's just a handful of suspects to investigate.
But as I said, Vann Siegert, the serial killer depicted here, is really chill and unassuming, you just wouldn't suspect him of being a killer - so when he gets an apartment in this small California (?) town, and just seems so darn NICE, nobody makes the connection that the town's residents started disappearing shortly after he showed up. You'd think, logically, somebody would make that connection, he moved in in November, and by December 1 several people are missing and presumed dead. Hell, a high-school football star who's about to get scholarships just isn't going to vanish, he's got a lot to live for.
His landlords, the Durwins, don't suspect a thing either, but then, they're careful to not form a friendship with their tenant, well, Jane is, anyway, she wants to keep him at a distance, while her husband Doug wants to take Vann to high-school football games and then go out drinking with him, and before long he offers to get him a job at the post office. Well, it is November and there are flyers and catalogues and Christmas cards coming, and also nobody has invented Amazon just yet, so there should be a LOT of mail to deliver. Well, actually they start people on the mail trucks while they learn the intricacies of sorting and, umm, all the other stuff they do at the post office. I'm sure it's much more complicated than we think. Doug doesn't get his own route until old Joe La Moine has a heart attack - and surprisingly, Vann had nothing to do with THAT.
Vann prefers poison, anyway - and he doesn't kill just anyone, he's very selective - but at the same time he's so prolific, it's hard to keep track of all the people he kills, it's actually easier to discuss the people he DOESN'T kill. Vann has an interior monologue so we can pick up on his attitude and methods and general outlook on life, and I wish I could say that all of that is very interesting, but it's just not. Vann seems totally normal, and therein lies the problem, we as an audience want to believe that there's something WRONG with a serial killer, that his thoughts are dark and confusing or at least twisted or muddled, and that doesn't seem to be the case here. So, umm, WHY does he kill people, then, exactly? The movie doesn't only not answer this, but it never even gets around to asking the question.
Instead Vann learns how to sort mail quickly, he develops a relationship with Ferrin, the sarcastic-enough 90's woman who also works at the post office, and before long they're going on day trips to the beach where Ferrin drinks too much, and then hanging out in her cabin, where she also drinks too much. Meanwhile we're all probably wondering where the line is, can he have a working relationship with a woman and keep that separate from all the killing, or are the worlds bound to overlap? So many of his encounters with lonely women end badly, is there any way to avoid that with Ferrin? These are things for him to ponder while he volunteers to help with the search for that missing football player, and then later also attends his memorial service.
Yet Vann is always conscious of the fact that if he says the wrong thing or he happens to be the person in the search party who finds the body, the police will be on him like THAT. Then one day his landlady disappears, and that was also the same day that her husband borrowed Vann's truck, so if Doug was involved, the cops are going to be ALL OVER that truck, and God only knows what they'll find. What will his excuse be then, that he couldn't have beaten her to death because he's more of a poison guy? In both Vann and Doug we see this weird dichotomy of relationships, where people can simultaneously love someone and also hate them enough to kill them - and don't say it can't happen because it clearly can.
All through this, Vann has imaginary conversations with two cops (the "Dream Police" from that Cheap Trick song?) and they harass him and ask him questions, and honestly I don't know if they represent cops who arrested him or if they're two of his past victims or BOTH of those things, or if he's imagining conversations that may take place in the future if he slips up someone and gets arrested for his murders. It's all a bit unclear, all we know is that these guys aren't willing to help him dig any more unmarked graves.
NITPICK POINT: Back in 1999, if you wanted to send something to your friend who worked at the post office, you didn't have to buy stamps, you could just put that thing in an envelope with her name on it and drop it in a mailbox? I mean, I guess that works if you know she works in the dead letter department, but I'm not convinced.
By no means does this count as a Christmas movie - however, Vann moves into this town in November, and the increase in holiday mail is mentioned when he's offered that post office job. Also, we do see the Durwins putting up Christmas decorations and offering Vann cookies, however he doesn't really want to be part of their holiday celebration. Maybe he just expects that he'll be leaving town after New Year's, just in case the cops are getting too close to solving any of his murders by then. I guess that's the lonely life of a serial killer for you, never getting too close to anybody, which, come to think of it, is probably a good thing. Right?
Also starring Dwight Yoakam (last seen in "Logan Lucky"), Dennis Haysbert (last seen in "Waiting to Exhale"), Alex Warren (last seen in "Bad Boys II"), Mercedes Ruehl (last seen in "Hustlers"), Brian Cox (last seen in "The Ring"), Janeane Garofalo (last seen in "Steal This Movie"), Meg Foster (last seen in "Overlord"), John Vargas (last seen in "Miami Rhapsody"), Eric Mabius (last seen in "I Shot Andy Warhol"), Larry Miller (last seen in "Second Act"), Sheryl Crow (last seen in "Sheryl"), John Carroll Lynch (last seen in "Things We Lost in the Fire"), Chloe Black, Lois Gerace, Erik Holland (last seen in "The Outlaw Josey Wales"), Danny "Big Black" Rey (last seen in "When We Were Kings"), Axel Ovregaard, Brent Briscoe (last seen in "Beautiful"), Lew McCreary, Shannon Kies, Madeleine Ignon, David Warshofsky (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Mark Derwin (last seen in. "Everest"), Matt Gerald (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water")
RATING: 4 out of 10 hair samples
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