a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

As far as a movie for entertainment value goes, it is bad. But, as a true crime buff watching this movie, I will say that it is closer to fact than any other movie that tries to depict the Son of Sam. Yes, the cult scenes go a little further than they should, but it is much closer to the reality of the situation that Berkowitz was in back in 1976 than to think that a dog barked and he killed people amazingly unabated and that was conveniently it. I've discounted Maury Terry long ago, but there is too much evidence to support the fact that the NYPD knowingly let murderers free to clean their books of this lunacy. Use Terry's book as a guideline and do your own research. If you are really interested in this case, you might wonder if your 60 year old neighbor that grew up in Yonkers just might be a killer.

I once read a book entitled The Ultimate Evil, whose main claim was that David Berkowitz wasn't THE .44 killer but one of a revolving series of murderers sent out by a satanic offshoot of Scientology that called itself The Process! The book was very thick and detailed it's conspiracy theories told very convincingly, detailing very strange stories about this shadowy cult and it's connections to other killings including those of the Manson family! It also talked about suspicious deaths of acquaintances of Berkowitz.I thought it was very far-fetched but then I saw an hour long A&E show where David Berkowitz himself said it was all true! The reason I'm telling you this is that the whole son of Sam affair is an exploitation goldmine that has yet to be properly mined!Son Of Sam is better than Ulli Lommel's other serial killer video productions but that's not saying much. This is probably due to the fact that the David Berkowitz story is better suited to the cerebral stylings of our pal Ulli. However, this could have been a helluva lot better with a traditional script and a conspiracy theory angle detailing all the whacked out stories of The Church Of The Process, alleged snuff film of of one of the murders, etcetera.For more information on why I bothered to watch this, please read my review entitled: Battered Lommel Syndrome in the comment section for Dungeon Girl.

***SPOILERS*** Somewhat fictionalized account of the Son of Sam's murderous rampage that terrorized the city of New York back in 1976/1977. We get to see David Bekowitz aka Son of Sam after his capture by the NYPD in a holding cell being interviewed by his court appointed attorney Miss. Kline.Not at all denying his crimes that put some fifteen people in the hospital or morgue Berkowitz spills his guts out telling Miss Kline that the Devil made him do it. Alone and without any friends David got in with the wrong crowd, he tells Miss. Kline, who happened to be a gang of Satan worshipers. These evil people so thoroughly brainwashed poor David's mind to the point where he didn't have a mind of his own but one that's controlled by the Devil, or Satan, himself.We then have this slew of flashbacks of David moping around town, mostly around the Brooklyn Bridge, looking for victims to sacrifice, with his bulldog .44 handgun, to his Lord & Master Satan wherever he gets the call to do it. It seems that David's victims in the film don't corresponds with the real victims that the real Son of Sam murdered during his killing spree. None of the some dozen persons he guns down, and the circumstances under which he shoots them, don't remotely resemble those that the real Son of Sam did in some 30 years ago! There's also the story of who's directing Berkowitz to do these terrible things that turned out to be a black or chocolate Labrador dog name Sam thus the name Son of Sam that Berkowitz gave himself. In the film we see David on very friendly terms with Sam even at times sleeping with the mutt which also doesn't correspond with the real events of the Son of Sam murder case.In real life it wasn't Sam the dog whom Berkowitz was referring to as his father but Sam the man, Sam Carr, who's dog Harvey-called Sam in the movie-was driving Berkowitz nuts barking all night keeping him awake! In fact Berkowitz tried a number of times, after telling Sam Carr to shut his dog up, to shoot Harvey in order to keep him from constantly barking and thus be able to finally get himself a good night sleep! It was this non-stop barking on Harveys part that convinced Berkowitz that the dog was an agent of Satan pounding into his head orders to go out and kill for him through the Yonkers, where Berkowitz lived at the time, based Satanic Cult that he belonged to.Knowing that he's hopelessly possessed and controlled by the Devil/Satan Berkowitz finally asks and gets a local Catholic Priest-Father Duncan- to do an exorcism on him and free his body & soul from the evil influence that the Devil/Satan has on them. It's then after being cleansed by Father Duncan of the evil that has been driving him to maim and murder Berkowitz finally sees the light and becomes "whole" again. With his both body and soul exercised of the evil that the Devil/Satan infected them with Berkowitz has now, in the movie, become a new spiritual and righteous human being. Morphing from the evil Son of Sam into the good kind and loving Son of Hope that's he's known as, behind prison bars, today.Nothing really that new here on the murderous history of David Berkowitz but the fact that what he did wasn't done on his own but with the help and urging of his fellow Satanic Cult members. It seems in the movie that only Berkowitz was entrusted to do all the dirty work by the Satanic Cult as if he, being an army veteran, was the only one who knew how to handle a handgun. What really struck me about Berkowitz and his many victims in the movie is how they never saw him coming, even when he was standing right in front of them, until he started blasting away! It seemed as if Satan himself made Berkowitz, who had great trouble handling his .44 bulldog revolver, invisible so he wouldn't be spotted by his intended victims until it was too late!

This movie portrays the story of David Berkowitz in a dreamlike nature complete with haunting voices, star lens effects and twisting camera work going in and out of color/focus.Save yourself some time and just watch the first 20 minutes of this train wreck of a movie. Everything else is simply a repeat, both in style and form as they go from one murder to another. There must have been 10 shots of David just staring into the NY skyline experiencing schizophrenia which all appeared to be shot on the same day. Fortunately, nothing is graphic or too bloody and the murders are implied. From wooden acting to Karo syrup blood effects, the film is amateurish.Lastly, you would think that someone would at least run some of the text through a spell checker as the concluding text contained typos.