THE BOSTON STRANGLER: THE UNTOLD STORY

Albert De Salvo (David Faustino) rings Dr Arlen (Jude Gerard Prest) from Death Row, advising he wants to confess all about the Boston Strangler murders. Intrigued, Arlen arranges to get to the prison for 9am the following morning, promising to set up a private therapy room where the pair of them can talk.

Then we backtrack to sexy-voiced redhead Jennifer, who returns home alone from a date that went well (very well, if her practicing her future surname in the mirror is anything to go by). Unfortunately, her broad smile and the soft music on the soundtrack are only there to fool us viewers - before long she ends up dead, strangled in her bedroom by a masked assailant using her own stockings.

The murder is reported in the Boston newspaper, thanks to police Captain Parker (Timothy Oman) leaking the story to the press in a desperate bid to raise awareness. He explains to the detective in charge of the investigation, John (Andrew Divoff), that the city is in the grip of a serial killer and, by his own admission, he hasn't any clues to go on.

Things look up for Parker and John when a woman turns up at his station claiming to have survived an attack by the Strangler. An ID parade is set up for the woman, including De Salvo who clowns around in sunglasses during the line-up. However, the woman points out Frank (Kostas Sommer), a known violent criminal. She's convinced he's the man that attacked her.

Frank is locked up while De Salvo and the other ID parade members are thanked for their time. De Salvo returns to his high-rise apartment and swiftly afterwards bumps into the new girl on the block - Mary Beth. He convinces her that he's a fashion scout and takes her to his apartment to take her vital statistics. She gets suspicious when he measures her cup size by fondling her bare breasts, and tries to escape ... with predictably sinister consequences.

The death of Mary Beth is different in method to the previous murders - although sexual assault has occurred, and a stocking was found around Mary Beth's neck, she was stabbed in the throat rather than strangled. This leaves John convinced that there is more than one killer at large. His professional adversary, Winfield (Joe Torry), is convinced there is only one killer to find, and determines to beat John to the quarry.

The murders continue as John becomes further baffled by the lack of decent forensic evidence, the apparent arrival of a copycat and an on-off (mostly off) relationship with an intrusive female journalist, the feisty Jana (Beth Shea). His lot is further trampled upon when the case is taken over by the ambitious but misguided Winfield. But by this point John is an obsessed man - and you can't hold an obsessed man back.

Meanwhile, De Salvo continues to live out his own frustrated life with his Italian fiancée Claudia (Tara Shayne) and an increasingly violent streak that threatens to consume him completely.

The film unfolds with more murders by a masked attacker, and De Salvo's increasingly haywire need to be noticed, to be famous even if that means being "infamous". This ultimately leads to his confession to the Boston Strangler killings, and him winding up sharing a cell with the aforementioned Frank ...

THE BOSTON STRANGLER: THE UNTOLD STORY is written and directed by Michael Feifer, the guy who also brought us B.T.K., DRIFTER: HENRY LEE LUCAS, BUNDY: AN AMERICAN ICON and ED GEIN: THE BUTCHER OF PLAINFIELD. So, this is pretty familiar territory for the man.

To give him credit, the film was apparently shot on DV in ten days for a paltry sum. To this end, it looks pretty slick and its production values belie its humble origins. The man's got experience in making low-budget films, and it shows.

But while the film has a visual sheen and is tautly edited by Roberto Jimenez, it is perhaps a little too well oiled for it's own good. It's polished in the way a "true life" TV film would be, albeit with added swearing and bloodless violence thrown in for good measure.

The biggest surprise about the film is the central performance from Faustino as De Salvo. If you haven't already clicked, Faustino is best known as Bud Bundy (yes, Al's horny son) in the US sitcom "Married With Children". If you'd have told me, even two years ago, that I'd be watching a film about Albert De Salvo with Bud Bundy in the lead role, I'd have taken your car keys off you and refused to hand them back until the 40 pints of lager had worn off ...

But, looking grown-up and unshaven, he gives a committed and lively performance as a goofball who wants to be recognised, for whatever reason. Sure, Faustino is still amusingly short, but that adds to De Salvo's sad neediness. In many senses, there are parallels between De Salvo in this film and the tall-story teller Mark Read in the superior CHOPPER. Make no mistake though - as fine as Faustino is in a role where he has to get aggressive and shout "fuck!" in women's faces at times, he is no Eric Bana.

The remaining cast are perhaps the only major tell-tale signs of the production small scale. Divoff plays his part with a total lack of expression or imagination. He may as well have been auditioning for a bit-part as a faceless FBI agent in an episode of CSI. Torry is presumably on amphetamines, such is his nervous energy during even the most sedate conversations. And Sommer, as what is ostensibly hoped to be recognised as the "real baddie", is a laughable caricature through no fault of his own (the accent, mate).

The story itself is a familiar one to anyone who shares a fascination with serial killers, rendering the "untold" part of the title. Feifer does at least attempt to reflect on the effect De Salvo's actions have on his family, and the second half of the film is admittedly more satisfying than the episodic first - largely due to the exploration of fact and fantasy, and the thin line between the two. But this is far too polite an examination - it never probes deeply enough, leading me to think that the only research undertaken for the film was probably reading a couple of books and catching a documentary on the History channel. If you want revelations, this is not the "untold" scoop it perhaps suggests it is.

Reasonably lit, flatly coloured and paced adequately, STRANGLER is a competent pot-boiler that is best suited to late-night TV. As a DVD rental, it's passable. As an addition to your permanent DVD collection, it's a hugely unlikely proposition.

The film gets a solid presentation in an uncut anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer.

English audio is provided in a good, evenly balanced 5.1 track. English Hard-of-Hearing subtitles are optional.

An extremely attractive animated main menu page continues with the film's incessant, throbbing score while offering a montage of sepia-tainted violence from the film. From this, there's a static scene-selection menu allowing access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

The only extra relating to the film is a commentary track. This is credited on the disc as being by Feifer, Faustino and composer Andres Boulton. It also features editor Jimenez, who offers his fair share of information about why he chose to show the film in a certain sequence.

The chat is a light one, with plenty of laughs shared between the four friends. Even so, there's a lot of insight into the making of a low budget film and Feifer's drive to make it in the first place. Having listened to the affable camaraderie and interesting stories on the chat track, I feel guilty that I didn't like the film more.

The disc is defaulted to open with trailers for THE SPIRIT (16x9 enhanced 2.35:1), plus the Twisted Pictures-produced CATACOMBS, the miscalculated B.T.K. and the over-rated THE HAMILTONS (all of which are presented in anamorphic 1.78:1).

Lacking bite and, worse, lacking the addition of anything new to an already famous story, THE BOSTON STRANGLER: THE UNTOLD STORY is pretty forgettable fluff that doesn't hold a candle to the excellent 1968 account of the killer's story starring Tony Curtis (Richard Fleischer's superb THE BOSTON STRANGLER). It's great to see Faustino mature into a credible actor, but he needs to be better served before he can hope to make that transition to big screen favourite in the way that the curiously favoured Shia LaBeouf has.

This one's for telly addicts who can't wait for it's inevitable arrival on Channel 5 ...

Review by Stu Willis