Rampage (1987 film)

Rampage is a 1987 American crime drama film written, produced and directed by William Friedkin. The film stars Michael Biehn, Alex McArthur, and Nicholas Campbell. Friedkin wrote the script based on the novel of the same name by William P. Wood, which was inspired by the life of Richard Chase.

The film premiered at the Boston Film Festival on September 24, 1987, but its theatrical release was stalled for five years due to production company and distributor De Laurentiis Entertainment Group going bankrupt. In 1992, Miramax obtained distribution rights and gave the film a limited release in North America. For the Miramax release, Friedkin reedited the film and changed the ending.

Plot summary
Charles Reece is a serial killer who commits a number of brutal mutilation-slayings in order to drink blood as a result of paranoid delusions. Reece is soon captured. Most of the film revolves around the trial and the prosecutor's attempts to have Reece found sane and given the death penalty. Defense lawyers, meanwhile, argue that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity. The prosecutor, Anthony Fraser, was previously against capital punishment, but he seeks such a penalty in the face of Reece's brutal crimes after meeting one victim's grieving family.

In the end, Reece is found sane and given the death penalty, but Fraser's internal debate about capital punishment is rendered academic when Reece is found to be insane by a scanning of his brain for mental illness. In the ending of the original version of the film, Reece is found dead in his cell, having overdosed himself on antipsychotics he had been stockpiling.

Alternate ending
In the ending of the revised version, Reece is sent to a state mental hospital, and in a chilling coda, he sends a letter to a person whose wife and child he has killed, asking the man to come and visit him. A final title card reveals that Reece is scheduled for a parole hearing in six months.

Influences
Charles Reece is a composite of several serial killers, and primarily based on Richard Chase.

The crimes that Reece commits are slightly different from Chase's, however; Reece kills three women, a man and a young boy, whereas Chase killed two men, two women (one of whom was pregnant), a young boy and a 22-month-old baby. Additionally, Reece escapes at one point—which Chase did not do—murdering two guards and later a priest. However, Reece and Chase had a similar history of being institutionalized for mental illness prior to their murders, along with sharing a fascination with drinking blood and cutting open the organs of their victims. Reece wears a bright colored ski parka during his murders and walks into the houses of his victims, as did Chase. Unlike with Reece in the 1992 cut, Chase was sentenced to death, but he was found dead in his prison cell, an apparent suicide, before the sentence could be carried out. In the film, Reece lives with his mother and has a job. When Chase's crimes were being committed, he lived alone in an apartment and was unemployed. Reece's father is also said to have died when he was a child, whereas Chase's father was still alive when his crimes were being committed.

While Chase was noted for having an unkempt appearance and exhibiting traits of paranoid schizophrenia in public, the film's makers intended to portray Reece as "quietly insane, not visually crazed." Alex McArthur said in 1992 that "Friedkin didn't want me to play the guy as a raging maniac. We tried to illustrate the fact that many serial killers are clean-cut, ordinary appearing men who don't look the part. They aren't hideous monsters." To prepare for the role, Friedkin introduced McArthur to a psychiatrist who deals with schizophrenics. He showed McArthur video tapes of interviews with different serial killers and other schizoids.

The incident where Reece goes on a rampage after escaping custody was inspired by a real-life event in Illinois, that occurred while the film was in production. In this event, the killer painted his face silver, something which Reece also does.

The film had a negative portrayal of courtroom experts, and this was personally motivated by Friedkin's ongoing custody battle for his son, which he was having with his ex-wife.

Soundtrack
The film's score was composed, orchestrated, arranged and conducted by Ennio Morricone and was released on vinyl LP, cassette and compact disc by Virgin Records.

Release
Rampage was filmed in late 1986 in Stockton, California, where it had a one day only fundraising premiere at the Stockton Royal Theaters in August 1987. It played at the Boston Film Festival in September 1987, and ran theatrically in some European countries in the late 1980s. Plans for the film's theatrical release in America were shelved when production studio DEG, the distributor of Rampage, went bankrupt. The film was unreleased in North America for five years. During that time, director Friedkin reedited the film, and changed the ending (with Reece no longer committing suicide in jail) before its US release in October 1992. The European video versions usually feature the film's original ending. The original cut of the film has an 1987 copyright date in the credits, while the later cut has a 1992 copyright date, and includes new distributor Miramax's logo at the beginning, instead of DEG's. The original cut also has the standard disclaimer in the credits about the events and characters being fictitious, unlike the later cut, which has a customized disclaimer, mentioning that it was partly inspired by real events.

In retrospect, William Friedkin said: "At the time we made Rampage, [producer] Dino De Laurentiis was running out of money. He finally went bankrupt, after a long career as a producer. He was doing just scores of films and was unable to give any of them his real support and effort. And so literally by the time it came to release Rampage, he didn’t have the money to do it. And he was not only the financier, but the distributor. His company went bankrupt, and the film went to black for about five years. Eventually, the Weinsteins' company Miramax took it out of bankruptcy and rereleased it. But this was among the lowest points in my career." There was a year long negotiation with Miramax, and a disappointing test screening of the original cut. The changes that Friedkin made with the 1992 cut addressed concerns from Miramax that the film was not coherent enough, in addition to addressing Friedkin's changing stance towards the death penalty. The 1992 cut included a previously unreleased scene of Reece buying a handgun at the beginning and lying about his history of mental illness, whereas the original cut begins with one of Reece's murders, without explaining any of his background.

Regarding the five year gap between the film's American release, McArthur said in 1992, "It was a weird experience. First it was coming out and then it wasn't, back and forth. The fact that it was released at all is amazing." McArthur added that, "I've changed a lot since that picture was made. I have three children now and I'm not sure I would play the part today. I certainly wouldn't want my kids to see it."

In 1992, the film played at 175 theaters in the United States, grossing roughly half a million dollars against a budget of several million dollars. McArthur said in 1992 that the film was never intended to be a big commercial hit.

Reception
The film received a polarized response. Some critics ranked Rampage among Friedkin's best work. In his review, film critic Roger Ebert gave Rampage three stars out of four saying, "This is not a movie about murder so much as a movie about insanity—as it applies to murder in modern American criminal courts...Friedkin['s] message is clear: Those who commit heinous crimes should pay for them, sane or insane. You kill somebody, you fry—unless the verdict is murky or there were extenuating circumstances." Gene Siskel opined the film needed more scenes in the courtroom. Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the acting and commented, "'Rampage' has a no-frills, realistic look that serves its subject well, and it avoids an exploitative tone."

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called the film "despicable", saying that the "movie devolves into hateful propaganda" and "its muddled legal arguments come off as cover for a kind of righteous blood lust". Stephen King, an admirer of Rampage, wrote a letter to the magazine defending the film.

Desson Howard of The Washington Post noted that in the film's five year delay, there had been several high profile serial killer cases, saying "In this Jeffrey Dahmer era, McArthur's claims of unseen voices and delusions that he needed to replace his contaminated blood with others' are familiar tabloid fare", however, he noted that despite this, the film "still preserves a horrifying edge." In a separate 1992 review for the The Washington Post, Richard Harrington had a more negative view, criticizing the film for feeling like a made for television feature, and claiming that it had a dated look to it due to its long delay.

In retrospect William Friedkin said: "There are a lot of people who [now] love Rampage, but I don’t think I hit my own mark with that". In another interview, Friedkin said he thought the film failed because audiences perceived it as being too serious, and they were expecting something different from him.

In 2021, Patrick Jankiewicz of Fangoria wrote, "Half-serial killer thriller, half-courtroom drama, Rampage is an unnerving study on the nature of evil and what society should do about it."

Home media
Friedkin's original cut featuring the alternate ending and some additional footage was released on LaserDisc in Japan only by Shochiku Home Video in 1990.

The American edit of the film was released on LaserDisc in 1994 by Paramount Home Video. The film received a DVD release by SPI International in Poland.

Kino Lorber announced plans to release Rampage on Blu-ray in 4K UHD sometime in 2024.