For the 1963 adventure film starring Robert Mitchum, see Rampage.

Rampage
Promotional film poster
Directed by	William Friedkin
Produced by	William Friedkin, David Salven
Written by	William Friedkin, William P. Wood (novel)
Starring	Michael Biehn, Alex McArthur, Nicholas Campbell
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Robert D. Yeoman
Editing by	Jere Huggins
Distributed by	Miramax Films (USA)
Release date(s)	1992
Running time	97 min
Country	USA
Language	English

Rampage is a 1987 movie directed by William Friedkin. It was filmed in Stockton, California, in 1986 and received nationwide American release in 1992.

[edit] Synopsis

Alex McArthur plays a serial killer named Charles Reece, 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 movie 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 (played by Michael Biehn), 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.

[edit] Influences

Charlie Reece is loosely based on the real-life serial killer Richard Chase.^[1] The crimes that Reece commits are slightly different from those that Chase committed, 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, murdering two guards and later a priest, which Chase did not do in real life. However, Reece and Chase were similar in that they both had a history of mental illness and an obsession with drinking blood. Like Reece, Chase was also sentenced to death, but he committed suicide before the sentence could be carried out.^{[original research?]}

[edit] External links

• Rampage at the Internet Movie Database
• Rampage at Allmovie

[edit] Footnotes

This 1980s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e