The Hillside Strangler review

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Death is Chuck Parello's directorial métier. So, after the redundant Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, Part 2 and the intriguing but flawed Ed Gein comes this true crime drama about the notorious "Hillside Strangler" - a serial killer whose media nickname was created before `he' was discovered to be a deadly duo.

Cousins Kenneth Bianchi (C Thomas Howell) and Angelo Buono (Nicholas Turturro) were a psychopathic tag team who went on a 14-month rape'n'murder spree in California. ButParello has no interest in outlining the facts or following the police investigation, choosing instead to play it for laughs. Howell and Turturro ham it up as the clownish odd couple, but the joke's a sick one: lingering over sexualised violence in which every piece of ass becomes a piece of meat. An irredeemable, misogynist piece of trash, The Hillside Strangler is monstrous, but it ain't no Monster.

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