Rampage (1987)

Director: William Friedkin
Writer: William Friedkin, based on the novel by William P. Wood
Stars: Michael Biehn, Alex McArthur, Nicholas Campbell, Deborah Van Walkenburgh, John Harkins, Art LaFleur and Billy Greenbush

Index: Make It a Double.

At first glance, Michael Biehn’s second pick is pretty much the same movie as his first. It’s another story about a psychopath, like Deadly Intentions, with Biehn in the lead and we see it unfold from the act to the pursuit to the trial. However, it doesn’t take long for a whole slew of differences to manifest. And, in the end, it’s a very different movie, often a mirror image.

Sure, his wife leaves him here too but it isn’t because he’s the psychopath tormenting her; it’s because he’s the prosecuting attorney who is given the task of seeking the death penalty for the psychopath, even though he personally opposes it for moral reasons. His wife Kate is a lawyer too who also doesn’t believe in capital punishment and she sees this as a step too far for her to accept in a relationship.

He’s Tony Fraser, who heads Major Crimes either for the state of California or the city of Stockton, and his personal struggle with the death penalty echoes that of the director, the reason why there are two different endings.

Rampage was shot in 1986 and was screened a few times in 1987 but the bankruptcy of Dino De Laurentiis’s entertainment group left it in a state of limbo, unseen and unreleased. It took until 1992 for Miramax to pick up the rights to distribute it but the version seen in theatres at this point was reedited by the writer/director, William Friedkin, and given a new ending that was more in line with his changing views.

I chose to watch the original 1987 version, which felt like a TV movie because my copy is open matte, so near the 4:3 ratio of old school television, and in a relatively poor resolution. I then watched the changed parts in the 1992 version, the additional scene at the beginning and the changed ending, all in the widescreen of the theatrical release.

Those new scenes really change the tone in a fundamental way. The original is intended to make us think, about the meaning of insanity; how that affects culpability and guilt, legally; and about the death penalty. The new version is intended to make us worry, removing some of those questions (for us, if not the characters in court) and also removing closure, adding a not so subtle threat that on a different picture could seem like a pitch for a sequel.

Even though we spend half of the movie in court, there’s never any doubt about whether Charles Reese did what he’s accused of doing, because we’re right there to see him do it. And we see it more than once.

He knocks on one door, pushes the old lady who answers it inside and shoots her dead. He follows up with bullets for both her husband and her daughter. We don’t see him mutilate the latter, removing some of her organs, but it never seems to be in any doubt.

Then he walks into another house, after the husband has taken one son to the dentist, and shoots the mother and the other son dead. The first one finds one body after they get home. He’s only five years old. Once again, we don’t see any of the subsequent mutilation, but we do see the body parts in the basement he lives in when that’s searched, given that there was very little doubt about whodunit.

The question is always about whether there was a pretty crucial mitigating factor: was he insane at the time? There are a lot of reasons to believe that he was and likely still is, even beyond the apparent randomness of it all.

For one, he’s apparently convinced that he’s dying of a blood disease that’s prompting his body to fail, so his only recourse is to acquire the blood of others to drink. However, doctors find him physically healthy and, during the trial, there are scans of his brain to check that out too. A magnetic resonance scan, which we see in 3D animation, shows that it’s normal.

For another, this isn’t new. He even spent a period of time at Sunnyslope, a mental facility where he could get professional help. Perhaps he should have stayed there, but the American healthcare system really isn’t designed around people getting what they need, only what they can pay for.

What’s more, he shows no remorse for any of his actions. He did what he needed to do, he says. It was never personal. He’s always matter of fact about everything, so discussing murder and mutilation is no different from discussing what he had for dinner.The best aspect of the original film is that it asks us that question just as much as it asks a jury within the story. Clearly Reece did it, but can we find him responsible for his actions? If we do, then Tony Fraser is going to ask for his life. If we don’t, then he wouldn’t be freed but confined to receive the treatment he needs.

Its genius is to phrase this question through Tony Fraser, who’s therefore forced to keep on considering it, even though his morals oppose the arguments he makes in court. That makes it a peach of a part for Biehn, who’s up to the challenge, thankfully as he’s the biggest name in the cast. Alex McArthur, who’s excellent as Charlie Reece, was nobody at the time and the only other actor I recognised was Deborah van Walkenburgh as Kate Fraser. She was Mercy in The Warriors.

The worst aspect of the original film is that it takes a while to get to this question and it’s not sure what it wants to be as it gets there. It opens up with the atrocities, making this seem like an ultraviolent seventies thriller or even a slasher movie. While this is routine for Reece, it seems a little gratuitous to us, even though it could easily have been much worse. Then it turns into a routine dark thriller, then a legal drama with medical undercurrents.

And the worst aspect of the 1992 version is to lessen the impact of the original. That scene spliced in at the beginning shows Reece going to a surplus store to buy a gun. The fifteen day waiting period in California has ramifications on the question of premeditation, but a couple of questions are even more important. When the clerk asks if he’s been institutionalised, he outright lies. This scene changes a great deal and the new ending changes even more.

I liked Rampage because of its depth. It asks important questions and it phrases them well, Tony’s moral dilemma a crucial part of that. It works much better in the 1987 version than it did in 1992, which is sadly the more accessible of the two. I have to wonder if that character depth is why Biehn chose Rampage or because it put him on the flipside of a similar story to Deadly Intentions. Either way, thank you.