Charles Reece (Alex McArthur) is a murderous, blood-sucking freak who walks around town blasting innocent people with an unsilenced handgun before sexual assaulting and disemboweling their corpses. He also likes to drink the blood of the dead to replace his own poisoned blood (cuz that’s how that works). Anthony Fraser (Michael Biehn) is a liberal-minded prosecutor who decides to go for the death penalty with Reece’s case.
Originally filmed in 1987, but not released theatrically until 1992, although I did locate a film festival in September 1987 where it played twice (see clippings below), William Friedkin’s RAMPAGE is a mess. The basic story, a fictionalized retelling of the crimes of Richard Chase, is mildly entertaining, but once he gets arrested (way too early in the film) things just bog down, down, down until you can feel your own poisoned blood coagulating in your cursed arteries.
Up and down pace, super impressive cast, way less violence than you would probably expect, a wicked shot of Reece fantasizing about bathing in blood while sitting in a tiger enclosure (I swear on Fred Durst’s grave that when I saw this film back in the 1990’s, the camera shot was wider and you could see three tigers), solid acting, the single darkest courtroom in movie history, a little blood, zero gore, zero nudity, a real hatred for expert witnesses, multiple interesting scenes that were cut short while other (less imaginative) scenes were left in.
I’m not sure which version of this film I originally saw back in the day and I’m not even sure that it matters. Watching RAMPAGE in 2025 is going to be disappointing for (I would think) everybody. There is just such a vast amount of superior serial killer and crime genre stuff out there nowadays. For example, I recently watched the show Dept. Q (Season 1) in two sittings and time just flew by! I couldn't get enough. Then I sit down today to revisit RAMPAGE and while I was fascinated by the cast, the story (especially the courtroom stuff) was dead on arrival.
I'm sure there's Friedkin freaks out there that absolutely love this movie, but it's just not my cup of non-poisoned blood anymore. I do remember liking it when it first came out, but it has not aged well. That said, if they ever come out with a definitive, remastered version of RAMPAGE, I would watch it.
