I love this movie so much

Too much of everything

Just perfect...

Great Film overall

Kemper is set in Santa Cruz in California where two female murder victims are found within the space of a few hours, detective Tom Harris (Christopher Stapleton) is on the case & because of the different kill pattern he feels that two separate killers are on the loose. Harris seeks the help of his gifted friend Ed Kemper (Robert Sisko) who has helped catch serial killers in the past by creating a profile, sure enough Kemper's clues lead Harris to one of the killers but in a ironic twist it turns out that Kemper the man helping to catch serial killers is actually one himself & after he murders his abusive mother (Patricia Place) detective Harris has to hunt down & bring his one time friend to justice. Kemper regularly phones Harris & plays a cat & mouse game with him as he tries to make Harris understand why he became a serial killer...Also known as Kemper: The Co-Ed Killer this was directed by Rick Bitzelberger & according to the opening credits is supposedly 'Based on True Events' although while there was indeed a serial killer called Ed Kemper (Edmund Kemper in reality & not Edward Kemper as he is called here) who killed several hitchhiking teenage girls in the late 60's & early 70's almost everything about this film & it's script is fabricated & a work of pure fiction. To be frank Kemper isn't even a reworking of the facts, there is nothing here in Kemper that relates to reality other than a guy whose last name is Kemper & kills a few people. The script invents this relationship between Kemper & a detective named Harris, while the twist that the man helping Harris to catch serial killers is in fact a serial killer himself we know that from the outset, we know Kemper is a killer so when the twist is revealed about a third of the way in it comes as absolutely no surprise whatsoever. While the cat & mouse relationship between Harris the hunter & Kemper the hunted as he teases & taunts Harris is a slightly different take on the usual serial killer thriller it only carries the film so far, eventually it just becomes a little boring as nothing else really happens. The pace is alright, at just under 90 minutes Kemper is watchable & alright for what it is but it's nothing to write home about & ultimately forgettable.While the real Kemper was active in the late 60's & early 70's the makers probably couldn't afford a period piece & as such features mobile phones, new cars & is contemporary. The retro diner was probably a little reference to the actual period Kemper killed during but otherwise even the backdrop isn't right. There's a bit of gore, there are a couple of gory slit throats with a cop having his throat sliced open with some wire, a couple of decapitated heads including one in an oven (at least Kemper had the decency not to turn the oven on...) & a few dead bloody bodies. Reasonably well made Kemper looks decent enough, it looks like a polished television film rather than a full blown theatrical release though.The production values are alright, it's quite well made without being anything special. The acting is alright, but again without being anything special.Kemper is a decent enough time waster, a serial killer thriller based on true events that don't resemble those events in the slightest. Not the worse serial killer thriller out there but far from the best either.

This movie was downright wretched. I watched it on Showtime Extreme and found myself cleaning while it was on, it was THAT awful.What offends me most is this has nothing to do with the killings.The real story is so much more compelling. A 15 year old kills both grandparents, then gets committed, only to go on a killing spree when he gets out of the psychiatric facility at the age of 21. He was also 6'9".This film has the era wrong...this was the late 60s and early 70s. It also has all the facts, essentially wrong. Kemper was not an average-size man in his 40s. He was a giant of a man in his early 20s.A decent film would have recreated the entire case, so there would at least be come thought provoking questions (i.e. how do you let out a psychopath to kill again). Halloween (the remake), is probably closer to the true story than this one was.This was just a cheesy, badly-done splatter film that slapped the name Kemper on it, for no apparent reason."Psycho" really had little to do with the Ed Gein case. But it didn't really pretend to, and it was extremely well made."Kemper," on the other hand.....bottom of the barrel.

Not only is the use of cell phones and laptops incredible for the early 70s, but the character playing Edmund Kemper is unbelievable--He appears to be in his early 40s. Kemper was only 24 years old when he was caught. In addition, they show scenes of heads in kitchens...one of a girl whose head is in the oven and the other of his mother whose head is attached to his kitchen wall after her death. I don't understand...his mother's head was actually stuffed in a closet and they don't even mention how he killed his mother's friend.As for Harris, he has a very limited vocabulary and rather boring dialog. He puts some emotion into his character, but along with the cheap feeling the camera shots give, there is little to elevate the movie except for the character of Kemper and even that is lacking.It seems as if they wanted to portray Kemper as a sad sort of Norman Bates type person...from what I understand, he was openly friends with several officers due to his gregarious personality. If the writers had made him more multidimensional and younger, more attractive, instead of just pathetic, they could have developed a much more intriguing plot. His mother was actually an attractive person (physically) and his murder of his grandparents is much more complex and interesting than his just having killed them while they were sleeping.In other words, this plot has been so oversimplified as to just be about some sicko who sheds blood. Gone is the intellectual stimulation that the personality of a genius like Kemper's could have given the audience. His mother as well is pathetic and unidimensional. These people are so unlikable that the audience has no way to empathize with them and connect with the characters. Too bad it had to be all in black and white--the real life story has shades of gray and is much more provocative.

Only for the most desperate true-crime buff, this TV movie-quality dramatization is about serial killer Ed Kemper and one certain cop's bond with him and his pursuit of him. Lame acting, worse dialogue (written by a former soft-core porn screenwriter), plot holes aplenty, and lackadaisical direction and editing. Many scenes are wide angle master-shots with no real framing, as the actors just meander on screen and recite their lines of dialogue. The plot is not very fact based considering it claims to be inspired by true events, it deviates from the facts of the case almost from square one. It seems like the screenwriters were not even familiar with the case when they wrote the screenplay. An interesting movie could have been made out of the story, but they did just about everything wrong here. And I did not know that people had laptop computers and cell phones with text messaging and photos in the 1970s?