Truly Dreadful Film

Best movie of this year hands down!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

seriously? i only watched this movie because i am really interested in Keith Jespersons case. but wtf is this? i understand changing the victim and family names but he never painted a smiley face on his victims, the fbi didn't even know there was a serial killer at large, and they didn't even mention his infamous death game torture as he strangled the victims! they took the very basic story and transformed and altered it into something that would attract more audience when the original story would be so much better. it didn't do anyone any justice David arquette was a good actor but wasn't the best. he didn't put enough effort in the role. they skimmed over everything and just got to the kills, and the music was just too much

Flagged on the IMDb as "American," this is yet another in the long (too long) line of Canadian knockoffs posing as something they are not.Produced by a Vancouver production house specializing in projects with "strong female characters," starring Canadian actress Gloria Reuben (as the lead FBI investigator) and also starring "token" American David Arquette (the killer), this film pretty much is the poster child for 100% forgettable "poseur" films from the Frozen North.As far as this reviewer can tell, Reuben has never carried an entire film on her back before. And this may be the last time she gets the chance.Arquette has played baddies before, but is lost here with weak writing and direction. He struggles in the role.One single example if I may be permitted: when Reuben's character receives a hand-written letter from the Happy Face killer -- with a happy face as the return address -- you might expect her (if you are a regular film goer) to wear gloves and call a CSI before opening it...? You would be wrong. In this script, in this sloppy production, she opens it with the gusto and abandon a 12 year old would reserve for a Big Mac.Prints? Forensics? That is something you see only in "real" movies.Which this is not.

This is one of your run-of-the-mill Lifetime movies, with decent but not very great acting, a plot that sort of drags on and some rather annoying soundtrack. I think the most disturbing part of the film was where the younger Keith Jesperson put the kitten in the microwave, that was something I'd expect in a horror film, not a Lifetime movie.The Mountie thing, where Jesperson was fantasizing about joining the Royal Canadian Mounted Police... I don't know when this film takes place, but Mounties haven't worn red uniforms or rode horses in over half a century. They look, for the most part, exactly like American cops. And since Jesperson was a former Canadian resident, I'm surprised he wouldn't have known that.The Happy-Face Killer is incredibly similar to countless other Lifetime films, so if you haven't seen it, you're not missing much. But it's good for passing the time with, and it made me aware of the real story behind the film; I looked up the real Happy-Face Killer case and it was incredibly shocking but interesting to read about (I'm a big fan of true crime stories).

I don't know how long-distance truck drivers can stand it. Hours and hours on bleak interstate highways punctuated by mazes of lanes through cities like Norfolk and New York. And you must be sharp at all times. I hitched a ride with one driver who misestimated the height of his rig and the clearance of the Triborough Bridge and, pow, my head went through the windshield.The boredom and stress are enough to drive you crazy. That may be what happened to David Arquette as Keith Hunter Jesperson, aka The Happy Face Killer. Probably not, though. Nobody knows why someone would deliberately set out to kill a number of people seriatim, including total strangers. We can all put ourselves in the place of the person who murders a friend or a spouse. Those are people who are in a position to hurt us, whose opinions we care about. But a couple of hookers at truck stops? And then bragging about it later to the police and the FBI? The movie gives us the reliable child-abuse excuse, which can be dismissed with a wave of the hand. He grew up in a dysfunctional family. Ho hum. So did you and I. Furthermore I had a wicked hangnail when I was only five. Is it any wonder that I have all these bodies buried in my back yard? Spring turns the garden into a gay panorama of canary yellow Forsythia. In the end, when a rough-hewn answer is finally uncovered, it's more likely to be due to a neurological confluence centered somewhere in the neighborhood of the amygdala, which governs the fight-or-flight response.Well, I'm rambling a little, I know, but the film doesn't really call for much treatment. The two performers-in-chief are David Arquette, who does a credible job as the serial murderer, and Gloria Reuben as the FBI investigator, Mellinda Gand, who intrudes into what the Oregon cops consider a local affair. She's smooth, understated, and pixyish, and the fact that she's a woman allows the writers to get it some digs at the patriarchal society we're suffered to live under. Both Arquette and Reuben have a couple of good moments on screen but neither has a chance to stretch his or her acting chops. The formula is too strictly adhered to. It's as if they were actually aiming at mediocrity.There are a horde of movies about serial killers, perhaps more movies than killers. They almost form a genre of their own. As these things go, this is strictly routine, filmed in gray under the lowering skies of Vancouver, B.C.