The Clovehitch Killer by Christopher Ford - Eight out of 10

The Clovehitch Killer by Christopher Ford

Eight out of 10

The Clovehitch Killer is an excellent mystery drama, although it will most likely have a limited distribution and consequently a small audience, even with the many channels where it should be available on demand.

There is a caveat though…the very few critics that have noticed this feature have rates it with only 58 out of 100, which in this cinephile’s view is undeserving of this rather accomplished film.

In some way, it could remind the viewers of American Beauty; in that we have a “normal family” that is descending into mayhem, disaster and proves to have been anything but Ordinary…indeed we could think of another cinematic landmark – Ordinary People.

Charlie Plummer is exceptional in the leading role, marking a big progress from the part he played in All the Money in the World – otherwise a very flawed movie – that of John Paul Getty III.

The young, talented actor portrays Tyler Burnside, a Boy Scout, with irreproachable, kind, moral, impeccable attitude and manners who has to face a catastrophe and proves to be brave, clever, restrained, a Super Man really when faced with adversity and trauma.

In the introduction to this thriller, we learn that the community had experienced a terrible period ten years before, when a serial killer had tied, tortured and murdered ten women, became known as Clovehitch, a mad man that would eventually stop killing.

One night, as he drives one girl in his father’s pickup truck, they seem to be getting closer together, with the girl taking the initiative and expressing an evident liking for the handsome boy.

However, as she tries to release her seat belt, a photograph of a bonded woman, who seems to be so young she might have been a teenager, with a strapped ball in her mouth is found in the folds of the seat.

The passenger is aghast, disgusted and scared by what she has seen, looking now with revulsion at Tyler, sure that he is the one who keeps these terrible images and she speaks about it to the boy who tries hard to defend himself.

Alas, even if he explains he is not interested in such things, indeed, he abhors them and he has nothing to do with the picture, his friend – well, up to a few moments ago anyway – is only keen to get out of the car as quickly as possible, confirming a hypothesis that very often, our brains process the first couple of words or strong impressions and dismiss the rest.

Very fast, the incident is known by the whole school and community, the hero is approached by various colleagues and neighbors, insulted, called “perv and pervert” and he even has to fight for his honor and ultimately the truth, which is that he “does not like these things, he actually hates them” as he states in vain to one of his friends who rejects him now.

The pickup truck belongs to the father, Don Burnside; a pillar of the community, the man who teaches boy scouts about gun safety and – interestingly for the plot – how to tie knots.

As the son tries to understand the presence of the bizarre, rather incriminating photo, he looks into his parent’s shed and discovers hidden under some loose planks, with shelves on top, some extreme porn magazines with women who are bonded and some outrageous photographs.

The hero is torn between his love, respect for his father and the circumstantial evidence that this man could have been involved in the terrible killings that had taken place in the area, many years before.

Kassi is a teenager from the same community, whose mother has been missing ever since the time when the Clovehitch monster had been in action, and she is the partner that the reluctant amateur detective finds and would help him in his quest to find the truth.

As more horrendous evidence is found, Tyler is intensifying his efforts to unearth the truth and solve the mystery, installing a GPS tracking app on his parent’s phone and eventually confronting him with the fact that he knows about the magazines, plans to tie victims, horrific drawings.

This psychopath is a very cunning, trained dissimulator, after all, he has lived for decades a double life, playing the decent, religious, kind parent and community member, while torturing and murdering ten women!

So he is believable – at least to a son who would so much like to be shown that his beloved parent is the man he loved, perhaps still loves and thought blameless and nearly perfect.

Tyler accepts the story that his uncle, who is more or less a vegetable as a consequence of what he knew had been an accident, is the vicious brute, found out by Don, told to stop and then tried to commit suicide, the botched attempt that would leave him paralyzed.

A worthy continuation follows this false version, with a tremendous finale, an unexpected, original end to a very good motion picture.