MOVIE REVIEW : Serial Killer on the Loose in ‘Murder’

Steven H. Stern’s “Love and Murder” (selected theaters) is a brisk, conventional made-in-Canada thriller, more suited to cable or videocassettes than theaters. It is seriously marred by several gratuitous slurs directed toward lesbians and by the attitude that once you label a serial killer as a transvestite that’s all the explanation of his lethal behavior that’s needed.

Todd Waring plays a struggling big-city photographer who picks up a little extra cash by pointing his camera, fitted with a telescopic lens, out his apartment window toward a large single women’s residence. Improbably, taking pictures of the residents in this clandestine manner lets him strike up acquaintances with them, allowing him to introduce them to men, a service for which he charges an unspecified fee. This sideline, makes him a target of an unknown killer who has murdered three women in the neighborhood. (Interestingly, we’re apparently not supposed to think of the photographer as a voyeur; indeed, he’s extremely hostile toward his building’s janitor for wanting to take a peek at those privacy-invading shots.)

The photographer, often abrasive to the point of obnoxiousness, may strike you as just a bit sleazy and hardly likable, but his bright, spunky girlfriend (Kathleen Laskey) sees him as a nice guy, even a potential husband. Both Waring and Laskey do well, considering the unappealing circumstances. Bearing a 1988 copyright, “Love and Murder” (rated R for language) was already reactionary in its sexual attitudes when it was made, and it’s hard to see how it could appeal to women, straight or gay.

‘Love and Murder’

Todd Waring: Hal

Kathleen Laskey: Brenda

Ron White: Policeman

Wayne Robson: Jeff the Janitor

A Southpaw release of a Sharmhill production. Writer-producer-director Steven Hilliard Stern. Executive producer Howard Deverett. Cinematographer David Herrington. Editor Ron Wisman. Costumes Lynda Kemp. Music Matthew MacCauley. Production design Tony Hall. Set decorator Brendan Smith. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (for language).