Rampage

Based on Sacramento prosecutor William P. Wood‘s novel –Õ in turn, based on the true-life events of murderer Richard Chase – Rampage starts with a bloodbath. On Christmas Day, 1986, in Stockton, Calif., baby-faced McArthur makes an arbitrary house call, a gun concealed in his red down jacket. An old lady opens the door for the last time in her life ... Friedkin offers fragmentary shots before and after the cruel acts, then lets your ambushed imagination take care of the rest. This documentary-like account of a California serial murderer is about more than gruesomeness. Focusing on the tangled legal aftermath of the average killing spree, it poses serious, almost-vigilante questions about the insanity defense in murder cases. Desson Howe, in: Washington Post, 1992