All-American Murder
All-American Murder
An antisocial college student gets transferred to a new college, where he meets the popular girl in school. When she's suddenly killed, he becomes the prime suspect. While he tries to clear his name, more victims fall to the brutal killer.
Kevin Ward reviewedJuly 6, 2025
This is such a weird movie. Halfway through the opening credits (remember those?) I had to pause and see if I was watching the right movie. The music sounded like I was gearing up for a classical romance. Then the movie starts and 15 minutes in I have to check AGAIN to see if I’m watching the right movie because now it feels like a 90’s teen rom-com. Nothing remotely feeling like a slasher. It’s not until Christopher Walken (Detective PJ Decker) appears on screen that I’m finally convinced that I downloaded the correct file. There is so much here that screams early 90’s (the music in particular) I probably could have been convinced this was a parody film made much later, if not for Walken’s decidedly younger appearance.
Michael J Faux is Artie Logan, a college playboy and ne’er-do-well that’s been kicked out of every school he’s attended. Fairfield College is his last shot at being a “contributing member of society” and although he come’s out the gate and f*#%’s The Dean’s Wife, he soon becomes infatuated (read:stalks) the e’er-do-well cheerleader Tally Fuller, and wants to change his skirt chasing ways…..until she’s brutally murdered and he’s the prime suspect. In classic 90’s fashion, this sets up a ridiculous premise where Artie is released from custody and has exactly 24 hours to prove his innocence before Decker arrests him.
I actually couldn’t tell if Decker believed in Artie’s innocence or if he was just giving him enough rope to hang himself. Decker is a bit of a wild card himself. He has an anecdote about a hooker with an 18 y/o sister that has a hankering to lose her virginity to a cop. He tells this story 3 times (i think) for reasons that still allude me. He verbally eviscerates and denigrates a perpetrator in the midst of a live hostage situation. (This is our introduction to his character).
As Artie continues to try to prove his innocence, more bodies begin to stack up (though not really until the last 25 minutes of the movie). Each new kill increasingly makes it look as though Artie is the killer.
Even though this doesn’t feel like a slasher for the majority if it’s run time, I completely loved this. The cast seems like they’re performing in earnest, but the dialogue is so off the wall at times, it feels like a spoof. The mystery, I will say, was pretty obvious, unfortunately, but really it doesn’t take away from this experience.