ScreamFest LA 2021 Features Creepy Female Serial Killer Aileen Wuornos in a Bio-Pic and What-if Film
Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman
Rating: 7/10
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1h99_yeFg0
Director & Writer: Daniel Farrands
Style: Horror, Drama, Thriller
Length: 1 hour 25 mins.
Aileen Wuornos is a haunting figure to me. She killed seven men in a year between 1989 and 1990 in an area of Florida close to where I lived in my 20s.
I wondered if I saw her at any of the sleazy bars near the Florida Everglades. I wondered how close I might of come to her. And this story takes place during my high school years, in 1976, and closer to my home then.
But of course, there are many such serial killers in Florida. I mean, I lived there when Ted Bundy was making the rounds, and so was a horrific killer invading rooms around my campus at the University of Florida.
So, I moved to Los Angeles and now live not far from where the Manson Family followed two victims home, and where the Hillside Strangler dumped a few bodies, and covered the Night Stalker murders. Nowhere is safe.
But Aileen was a monster, and of course, got Charlize Theron an Oscar in 2003 for getting ugly and playing her in “Monster.” What more could be said about her? Find out in “Aileen Wuornos: American Boogeywoman.”
In an interview at ScreamFest LA, director Daniel Farrands said he discovered a secret part of her life when she was married for a brief time to a rich man in Deland, Florida. Farrands then decided to make a kind of sequel to his “Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman” about another Florida-bound serial killer.
Actually, this “Boogeywoman” is better, with a much more accomplished cast, and a more intriguing story.
This is one of the first movies to be green-lit after Covid shut everything down, and it was done in 12 days with a minuscule budget, but it comes across like a traditional big-screen, big budget cast.
The story is rather linear, showing Wuornos on the eve before her execution and telling a reporter another story that she never told anyone. He is skeptical of the whole story, because she confesses to more murders that she could not have possibly committed, like her dying brother.
But, it’s interesting story-telling and like actor Tobin Bell says, “I like these fiction stories based on fact, they’re intriguing.”
Bell, you recall of course, is Jigsaw in the “Saw” franchise. This time, he plays the aging rich guy that Wuornos sees as an easy mark.
Farrands is no stranger to this kind of material, having written “Halloween 6” actually titled “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” and doing “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” and “The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.” There is no doubt he is getting better at finding adequate cast to play these people and setting them in noir-like stories.
An unrecognizable Ashley Atwood plays the older Wuornos who is about to be executed and weaves the tale to the interviewer.
But the amazing starlet of this movie is Peyton List (who plays Tory in the “Cobra Kai” TV sensation). She plays the character sensitively, beautifully, yet so evil and creepy it makes your skin crawl. She performs an amazing job in this.
Wuornos meets Jennifer (Lydia Hearst) at a beach and asks the stranger to bunk out at her dad’s mansion. Daddy Lewis Fell is played by Bell, who gets easily seduced by the youngster and marries her after two weeks.
Jennifer has a boyfriend played by extremely handsome model Andrew Biernat, who is the only one in the movie that maybe has some gratuitous nudity. He is scene in two full butt shots as he is dressing, and then in his revealing underwear while splayed out on the bed with his girlfriend.
In the cast interview after the premiere screening at #ScreamFestLA Biernat said, “I’d like to try to play a bad guy someday, but I’m always cast as the nice guy. And I’d like to keep my clothes on sometimes.” Then, he joked about having to pee really bad while he was on stage.
Another stand-out performance is Nick Vallelonga, who won two Oscars for writing and Best Picture of “The Green Book” which was based on his father’s friendship with black musician Don Shirley. Nick plays a lawyer who is suspicious of his friend’s marriage to Wuornos and tries to warn his friend Lewis.
Ultimately, this explains why Wuornos has terribly crooked teeth, and whether it’s all true or not is besides the point. It explores what could-have-been and shows that even an monster can be beautiful.
Incredibly shot, with lightning storms, sail boating, beautiful scenery and a lot of false deaths and mini-surprises, is a tad bit slow and maybe too predictable since from the outset, it is pegged as a lie.
This is a fascinating, creepy look that explores an unknown side of a notorious serial killer with a stellar cast that helps tell the story. #ScreamFestLA
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