Killer Nurse (2008) Reviews

• More Ulli Lommel Madness!!

  stsinger2008-11-28

  Another of Ulli Lommel's "real life" killer films, this one based on the killings of Charles Cullen. Most of Lommel's recent films are of the "rinse, lather, repeat" mode, where scenarios are repeated for the length of the film. Here's the cycle in this one: There is a title explaining why some patient is in the hospital. Cullen then wheels the patient into a chapel and talks to her for a while about very odd things. Then he wheels her into some locked area of the hospital and apparently kills her and then fondles the dead body while hallucinating about a nurse who is frequently topless. This is repeated several times. And then there are "explanations" and "twists" that bring us to the ending. "Killer Nurse" has what we've come to expect from Ulli's recent work -- long, repetitive scenes with what appears to be partially improvised dialog and all the stuff you might be interested in seeing (nudity and violence) either blurred out, filmed in poor lighting, or with bizarre editing, all designed so that you can't actually see any of it. Personally, I have an odd and inexplicable affection for his films -- possibly because I find a couple of his usual actresses to be very attractive -- but it's very hard to recommend anybody spend any money on this flick.

• An acute viewing challenge due to its severe inanity.

  DigitalRevenantX72013-05-29

  Story Synopsis: Charles Cullen is a disturbed man working as a hospital nurse. In between bouts of severe psychosis & Oedipal rage, Cullen moonlights as a serial killer, taking his female patients to an isolated spot, murders them by lethal injection then fondles their bodies. When caught, he claims to be an "angel of death" but the media gives him the fitting nickname "Killer Nurse". Film Analysis: Another one of German-born director Ulli Lommel's low budget films, Killer Nurse is like most of the director's work - based on the exploits of a real life serial killer, in this case Charles "Killer Nurse" Cullen. Cullen murdered an unknown number of female hospital patients during a sixteen-year period. It is widely believed that the number of victims could be as high as thirty or even forty. As is the case with most of Lommel's work, the film is an abstract retelling of real events. Lommel frames the film with the lead actor's narration which takes up most of the film's running time. This is accompanied by stock footage from Lommel's earlier films as well as his trademark 'lather, rinse, repeat' approach to storytelling. Killer Nurse is, at best, seriously inane. The narration that Cullen utters during most of the film's running time is so bad that it has the effect of producing unintentional laughter from the viewer. Lommel clearly has some sort of weird fascination with serial killers in the sense that it could be considered an obsessive compulsive disorder. The acting is horrendously patchy. The lead actor is so immersed in the role that you could hold fears for his mental health. Producer Nola Roeper has a habit of playing minor supporting characters, here starring as Cullen's supervisor.