Rampage is a 1987 American crime drama film written, produced and directed by William Friedkin. The film stars Michael Biehn, Alex McArthur, and Nicholas Campbell. Friedkin wrote the script based on the novel of the same name by William P. Wood, which was inspired by the life of serial killer Richard Chase.

The film premiered at the Boston Film Festival on September 24, 1987, but its theatrical release was stalled for five years due to production company and distributor De Laurentiis Entertainment Group going bankrupt. In 1992, Miramax obtained distribution rights and gave the film a limited release in North America. For the Miramax release, Friedkin reedited the film and changed the ending.

Plot

Charles Reece is a serial killer who commits a number of brutal mutilation-slayings in order to drink blood as a result of paranoid delusions. Reece is soon captured. Most of the film revolves around the trial and the prosecutor's attempts to have Reece found sane and given the death penalty. Defense lawyers, meanwhile, argue that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity. The prosecutor, Anthony Fraser, was previously against capital punishment, but he seeks such a penalty in the face of Reece's brutal crimes after meeting one victim's grieving family.

In the end, Reece is found sane and given the death penalty, but Fraser's internal debate about capital punishment is rendered academic when Reece is found to be insane by a scanning of his brain for mental illness. In the ending of the original version of the film, Reece is found dead in his cell, having overdosed himself on antipsychotics he had been stockpiling.

Alternate ending

In the ending of the revised version, Reece is sent to a state mental hospital, and in a chilling coda, he sends a letter to a person whose wife and child he has killed, asking the man to come and visit him. A final title card reveals that Reece is scheduled for a parole hearing in six months.

Cast

Influences

Charles Reece is a composite of several serial killers,

Reece's victims are slightly different from Chase's. Reece kills three women, a man and a young boy, whereas Chase killed two men, two women (one of whom was pregnant), a young boy and a 22-month-old baby. Additionally, Reece escapes at one point—which Chase did not do—murdering two guards and later a priest. However, Reece and Chase had a similar history of being institutionalized for mental illness prior to their murders, along with sharing a fascination with drinking blood. Their murders are both motivated by the belief that they need blood since their heart and internal organs are failing. The two had friends and girlfriends during their childhood/teen years, before descending into mental illness during early adulthood. The mental institution that Reece served at was called "Sunnyslope", whereas Chase's real life mental institution was called Beverly Manor. When Chase had his trial, the prosecution built their case around the notion that he knew what he was doing was wrong, and that the crimes were premeditated. Something which helped support this argument was the fact that Chase wore rubber gloves during the murders. Chase's suicide occurred in San Quentin Prison in 1980, a few months after he had a brief stay in a facility for the criminally insane, which he was temporarily sent to after behaving psychotically during his first few months at San Quentin. In both versions of the film, Reece lives with his mother and has a job at a gas station. When Chase's crimes were being committed, he lived alone in an apartment and was unemployed. Reece's father is also said to have died when he was a child, whereas Chase's father was still alive when his crimes were being committed.

While Chase was noted for having an unkempt appearance and exhibiting traits of paranoid schizophrenia in public, the film's makers intended to portray Reece as "quietly insane, not visually crazed." Wood sent the novel to Friedkin, who then decided to make a film about it, with the project first being announced in December 1985. Friedkin also read up on Chase extensively, and in February 1986, he corresponded with the District Attorney's Office in Sacramento who had prosecuted the case. They supplied him with a detailed list of Chase's acts, many of which Friedkin used for his murderer's habits and activities. The issue of the death penalty was a recurring theme in Friedkin's work, as his first film, 1962's The People vs. Paul Crump, was a documentary in support of a man on death row. He added in this interview that Rampage was an accurate depiction of the Richard Chase case, saying "it outlines the facts of the original case closely, almost too closely", and also said that the film's usage of violence wasn't sensationist, due to the briefness of it. with the film itself taking place during early 1987 during the trial parts. Biehn also recounted a confrontation during the filming of Rampage in Stockton, where Friedkin reprimanded him for not staying at the hotel he was designated to stay at with his family. The film was unreleased in North America for five years. During that time, director Friedkin reedited the film, and changed the ending (with Reece no longer committing suicide in jail) before its US release in October 1992. There was a year long negotiation with Miramax, and a disappointing test screening of the original cut. The changes that Friedkin made with the 1992 cut addressed concerns from Miramax that the film was not coherent enough, in addition to addressing Friedkin's changing stance towards the death penalty.

Beginning on October 30, 1992, the film played at 175 theaters in the United States, grossing roughly half a million dollars against a budget of several million dollars. McArthur said in 1992 that the film was never intended to be a big commercial hit.

Reception

The film received a polarized response. Some critics ranked Rampage among Friedkin's best work. Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the acting and commented: "Rampage has a no-frills, realistic look that serves its subject well, and it avoids an exploitative tone."

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called the film "despicable", saying that the "movie devolves into hateful propaganda" and "its muddled legal arguments come off as cover for a kind of righteous blood lust". Stephen King, an admirer of Rampage, wrote a letter to the magazine defending the film. In a separate 1992 review for The Washington Post, Richard Harrington had a more negative view, criticizing the film for feeling like a made for television feature, and claiming that it had a dated look to it due to its long delay. Gene Siskel believed the only reason the film was getting an American theatrical release after five years was because of the success of the 1991 serial killer film The Silence of the Lambs, saying that Rampages subjects "may be fascinating but are hardly commercial, particularly when the killings are so gruesome." He also characterized it as having less of a "glamorous" portrayal of serial killers than The Silence of the Lambs, and believed the film would have been stronger if it focused more on the court room aspects and cut out the murder scenes.

In 2009, Games Radar included it on a list of "The Most Delayed Movies Ever", and labelled it a "dark little thriller". Taste of Cinema placed it sixth on a list of "The 10 Darkest Serial Killer Movies of All Time". In 2021, Patrick Jankiewicz of Fangoria wrote: "Half-serial killer thriller, half-courtroom drama, Rampage is an unnerving study on the nature of evil and what society should do about it."

In retrospect, William Friedkin said: "There are a lot of people who [now] love Rampage, but I don’t think I hit my own mark with that".

Home media

Friedkin's original cut featuring the alternate ending and some additional footage was released on LaserDisc in Japan by Shochiku Home Video in 1990. The original cut was also released on VHS in the United Kingdom on March 9, 1989. This release was handled by CBS/Fox Video, a joint venture between CBS and 20th Century Fox. In early 1989, CBS/Fox Video still had an international distribution agreement in place with De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, who went bankrupt in August 1988.

During February 1992, the second cut's owner Miramax struck a deal with Paramount Home Entertainment to distribute their films on home video. In late 1992, Paramount released the second cut of Rampage on VHS in the United States. The home video distribution agreement with Paramount was terminated when Disney purchased Miramax in 1993, with Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment handling home video distribution for future Miramax films. The film's second cut would be released on LaserDisc in the U.S. in 1994. This 1994 LaserDisc release was still handled by Paramount Home Entertainment, rather than Disney/Miramax. At an undetermined date in the 2000s, the second cut of the film received a subtitled DVD release by SPI International in Poland, presumably having been licensed from Disney. Starting in 2011, Filmyard sublicensed the home video rights for Miramax's library to Lionsgate (for high-profile titles) and Echo Bridge Entertainment (for lower profile titles), although the second cut of Rampage was never released on DVD or Blu-ray during this period.

In March 2016, Filmyard Holdings sold Miramax to Qatari company beIN Media Group. Then in April 2020, ViacomCBS (later renamed Paramount Global and Paramount Skydance) acquired the rights to Miramax's 700 film catalog, after buying a 49% stake in the studio from beIN. Both cuts of Rampage are now part of Paramount's library, and Paramount Pictures have distributed it digitally since April 2020. The release was delayed for nearly two years, as there were issues with finding the original film elements for one of the cuts. It included several special features. Among them are commentaries on both cuts with film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson, and new interviews with actor Alex McArthur and true crime writer Harold Schechter. The original cut of the film for this release remains incomplete with approximately one minute missing which includes a key scene where Charles Reece pleads to be forgiven.

References

Bibliography

  • Director Friedkin Confronts Social Issues in Film at The Harvard Crimson