D.C. Sniper (2010 Video) User Reviews (21)

This Movie is a Time Thief

[gstratto · 1/10 · 20 March 2010]

I want my 92 Minutes back.

I got a copy of this movie after reading the post from broder-james, who made this movie seem like all it isn't.

This movie was sub B-grade, dreary and dull. The acting was repetitive, hesitant and very unbelievable. Constant theme park ghost train music really spoiled the flow of this movie which by the way, seemed like a cross between a documentary and very poorly acted sniping scenes. It seemed like the actors forgot their lines before every scene.

I was not immersed in a story about a serial killer, yet left wanting, wanting a better version of this movie.

I would rather have spent my time strapped to a bed of nails, with heavy-set midgets using me as a trampoline.

In my opinion, if you like movies, this is one to miss. Extremely disappointed.

Can you say trash?

[timrehnborg420 · 1/10 · 22 March 2010]

This was hands don't one of the worst movies I ever attempted to watch. I could tell from the first 20 seconds that it was going to be bad. After the first 5 minutes, this was confirmed. The best thing about this film is that it gives encouragement to aspiring filmmakers, directors, and actors. It shows that even if you're horrible a horrible actor, working for a poor director, and an awful production crew, on a gut-wrenchingly horrible film, that one day that film may be shown to millions of unsuspecting victims around the globe.

Don't waste your time. In my top 10 of Worst Movies Ever. Piece of trash.

What a horrible movie

[jphendu · 1/10 · 21 March 2010]

This movie was full of clichés, horrible acting and cheesy dialogue. How can you make the DC Sniper story boring? Before I watched this, I wouldn't think it would be possible. The camera work was very low quality and shaky. The confessionals between the characters and a camera were almost humorous and the voice over work of the federal agent was unneeded. Why was it important to know about his run away daughter and her venture into online pornography? I'm telling you... I don't know how anyone can say they enjoyed this movie. It was unfocused, poorly written and simply corny. I would expect this at film school.

Almost fiction......

[icebergslimproductions · 1/10 · 29 March 2010]

First off this movie was horrible.

With that being said this may be considered a spoiler to anyone thinking they are going to learn some thing about this case or the people who purportrated these acts. The only thing they got right were the names John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. Thats it nothing else.

I live in the DC area so I know a lot of the facts and what happened because we here in the District were very frightened and paid attention to every detail of what was going on around us.

Fact 1. Only 1 of the 13 shootings happened in DC. 10 of the 13 were killed. Unlike in the movie where they were just riding around DC.

In the movie they made it seem like Lee didn't want to shoot anyone when they were talking in the car(already in DC). When in Fact (2) They were linked to more than 10 shootings throughout the country before getting to DC.

Fact 3. There was no manifesto sent to the White House. They did however leave a few cryptic notes at some of the crime scenes one demanding that police say that they had captured them "Like a duck in a noose"(or something like that) Fact 4. There wasn't 2 lone agents (who looked like they were going to make out at one point in this movie) It was a joint task force of Montgomery Co PD & FBI.

Fact 5. The gun in the movie looked like a .22 rifle without a scope LMAO. they used a Bushmaster In the movie they just shot a lot of white people (mainly women) Fact 6. They shot or killed people of all races and nationalities in order to make it seem like like everyone was a threat including a 13 yr old black boy.

Fact 7. They were caught sleeping at a rest stop in Maryland by a trucker the same night the description of Muhammad and the car was broadcast. Not by 2 agents in an alley.

Its one thing to take liberties with facts but this was utterly ridiculous.

Avoid at all costs unless you want to see how not to make a movie.

An insult to the victims

[tradeczar · 1/10 · 22 August 2015]

Seeing that three consecutive reviewers gave this atrocity of a movie ten stars simply adds to the insult. I really don't know who is worse.....Uli Lommel for making it or whoever bought it for distribution. The true story of the snipers was compelling enough for the movie to have stayed true to the facts. If Lommel had wanted to make things up, he could have had a screenwriter build it from scratch. Instead he went on the cheap and exploited what was a horrible tragedy and sold it as a true account. Virginia plates on the car. No. New Jersey. A removable tail light through which Malvo shot the victims. Hardly. The snipers drove around with a visible hole cut from the trunk. Lommel never even shot any scenes outside California. And then there were the keystone cop detectives walking around the monuments (where none of the shootings occurred) watching tourists with binoculars as if that ever happened... All the while spouting patriotic drivel. This story and its victims deserved an honest movie. Lommel and the three reviewers who raved about this mess of a movie should be ashamed of themselves.

Terrible

[simon-218 · 1/10 · 24 April 2012]

Possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Terrible acting marred by long and tedious voice overs, cheap and shoddy camera-work and distracting and melodramatic sounds effects. Even the opening credits looked cheap and nasty. Its amazing how such a bad movie can be made about what is such a potentially interesting story. The only consolation was reading the very humorous reviews by other disappointed users on this site.

The movie could be a case study for aspiring actors and directors on how not to make a movie. It is so bad in every conceivable way that its a masterpiece of badness.

Awful Movie

[barnesyard · 3/10 · 13 November 2010]

This film was terrible in every aspect. The acting, filming, sound, character drama - all bad.

The idea was captivating - I kept hoping it would get better...but it didn't.

Someone could make a good version of this movie and it would be decent...it would probably be tainted by the stink of this movie.

I believe this was supposed to be some kind of drama - there was nothing dramatic about it though. Lots of long slow pans over scenery were used. Why would someone go to all the trouble of making this movie, and then after watching it say, "I still want other people to suffer through this."

The absolute worst movie you will ever see........

[justaskdan · 1/10 · 11 April 2010]

OK let's review key elements of which at least one or more are required in order to make a movie interesting, viewable, likable, thought provoking and perhaps even stunning or beautiful. This movie had bad writing (really bad), bad acting, bad casting, bad directing, bad cinematography, a bad plot and yes, even a bad score. In other words this film has absolutely no redeeming qualities about it whatsoever. I don't know how a project could fail so horribly in the year 2010 especially with such interesting and relevant material to deal with.

The 2003 made for TV movie entitled DC Sniper: 23 days of Fear, was excellent by the way! I guess they couldn't even come up with an original name for this turd.

I could tell that it was going to be a B movie with just the credits but many B budget movies I have watched and enjoyed. This was not one of them. Things that really bothered me were:

[1] Two real bad characterizations of the 'Texan' and the initial FBI agent who in the end took the sole credit for catching the duo. [2] This was supposedly based on fact yet the script deviated away from the facts at every opportunity.

[3] How the dynamic duo teamed up and during routinesurveillance while undercover they just happened to find them in a parking lot. I love the writing around this point where it becomes so cheesy that it is actual humorous. "That 50,000 dollar reward sure would go along ways in finding my daughter". As if cops get cash rewards for doing their jobs.

[4] The dinner scene was so laughable. How could anyone write so poorly.

[5] They couldn't afford a real gun I guess as the one they used was sooooo bad and everyone knows they were using a high tech semiautomatic rifle.

[6] The position of the kid in the trunk trying to shoot was so unrealistic that yet again I liked it because it was so humorous. No one could hit anything like that.

[7] Making a big deal of getting out and replacing the tail light after every shoot (which never happened by the way) and yet they forget to put it back on when they were caught napping in the parking lot.

I could go on easily but I won't. The movie was so bad that it forced me to register with IMDb to vent.

Nice to See Foree in the Lead

[Michael_Elliott · 14 April 2010]

D.C. Sniper (2010)

** (out of 4)

If the title of the movie you're watching in some way, shape or form mentions a recent serial killer then more than likely you're viewing an Ulli Lommel flick. This time out he takes on the sniper shootings that terrorized the D.C. area and we have horror legend Ken Foree (DAWN OF THE DEAD) playing the man guy behind the killings. If you're looking for a history lesson of the actual events then it's best to look somewhere else because this film is just like all the others in this non-stop cycle of "real event" films coming from Lommel. Apparently they're doing well on DVD so I guess we shouldn't expect any of them to stop anytime soon. This film, co-written by Lommel and Foree, is actually a step up from many of the previous films for a couple reasons. The first is that it appears Lommel was actually trying to make a movie instead of just swinging the camera around for no apparent reason. The film is still shot on a digital camera but it looks a lot more professional than earlier films. Another major plus is that the editing is also pretty good and the sniper killings contain some mild tension. Another reason this film works is because of the performance by Foree. It's not Oscar-worthy material but he fits the role nicely and you can certainly tell he's giving it his all. The rest of the supporting players (including Lommel) aren't that strong but none of them are too horrible. It should also be noted that this isn't a horror movie as it actually tries to come off as a political thriller. The sniper shootings contain quite a bit of blood so that might please those coming to this for violence. We get a couple supporting characters, undercover FBI guys, and their side stories really aren't that interesting. Another negative thing is that we get a lot of dialogue, which I'm sure those familiar with the recent work of Lommel will expect. This film certainly isn't going to make Lommel any new fans but those, like myself, who continue to watch everything he releases will probably agree that this here is a step up. It's certainly not perfect and not even close to being good but we at least get to see Foree in a big role.

My God

[rockiethadog · 1/10 · 29 March 2010]

This was by far the worst movie I have ever seen!! The music was terrible throughout the whole movie. The acting was pathetic and If I ever hear the word manifesto again it will be too soon!! The camera work was dodgy as hell and the shooting scenes had this cross hair camera work but the rifle they were using didn't even have cross-hairs. I wouldn't be surprised if this was filmed in 1 day. The FBI agents were comical the guy from Texas that dressed as a undercover cowboy but had a foreign accent....What the!! And the other agent who did the narration for the movie was ridiculous. I don't understand why we had to know about his daughter??? Don't waste your time with this one, you have been warned!!

Not the worst ever, but pretty close

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 12 October 2016]

The most surprising thing about this amateur effort re-telling the true story of the Washington, D.C. shootings that were perpetrated by a guy shooting out of the tail light of his adapted car is that it was directed by Polish director Ulli Lommel, the guy who brought us THE TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES and THE BOGEY MAN all those years ago. I had no idea that he was still working (or even still alive) and reduced to making straight-to-DVD junk these days.

The ONLY - and I mean ONLY - good thing about this film is Ken Foree, one-time star of DAWN OF THE DEAD. Foree plays the main villain of the piece and around half the running time is made up of him ranting to the camera about various facets and flaws of modern society. Sadly, the script is atrocious so a lot of what he's coming out with is absolute nonsense, but Foree is still good value and the only reason I bothered watching this rubbish to the end.

Sadly, everything around him is terrible: the supporting cast of non-actors are wooden beyond belief (including the director himself in an unwise acting role) and the direction is amateur. The various kill scenes, although gory, are robbed of any suspense or shock value thanks to the poor way in which they're conceived and shot. D.C. SNIPER isn't the worst film I've ever seen, but it's certainly very close to the bottom of the scale.

Not a Horror flick, that's right!

[normrinks · 9/10 · 20 April 2010]

What are these horror fans out there thinking? Especially in in way down under? Guys, this ain't a horror flick, alright? It's an art film, a personal journey. I know some people who - like me - really enjoyed this film, but it's made for an intellectual art house crowd, not for horror fans. I guess the big mistake the producers made was to market this as a horror film, that way they got the wrong people viewing it. I've seen those things happen over and over again, especially from Lionsgate in the U.S., they go ahead and create a gigantic horror campaign only to disappoint and anger horror fans, why they keep doing this is beyond me. Anyway, I really liked this movie, I found it inspiring and engrossing and different and very, very personal. And I think Ken Foree did one hell of a job! This is his best role and his best performance ever. And it is Lommel's best film in many years, so stop beating up on this film and check it out again, alright?

Ken Foree delivers a mesmerizingly menacing, screen dominating performance

[Weirdling_Wolf · 7/10 · 5 February 2022]

I've been a huge fan of the super-charismatic actor Ken Foree for many years, his effortlessly charm, dramatic intensity, and robust physicality not infrequently dominating the film he stars in, many instances Foree being the very best part of said production, and once again the powerhouse actor is not only the most luminous aspect to Lommel's Lo-fi, darkly-simmering true crime thriller, Foree's wholly convincing performance as disenfranchised ex-military John is positively electric; his emotionally wrought, painfully earnest monologues are of a nuanced, masterclass quality. With no disrespect to 80s horror maestro Lommel, but it would be altogether fair to say that the aesthetic quality of his more recent cinematic output has consistently failed to match the likes of his iconic spook show 'The Bogeyman', with the lack of finesse even suggesting that Lommel's meticulously macabre masterpiece 'The Tenderness of The Wolves' may well have been directed by someone else!

There is no doubt that the penurious budget contributed greatly to D. C Sniper's overall lack of polish, but, miraculously, in this specific instance, buoyed by Foree's muscular, compelling performance, Lommel's stark, unlovely hand-held video palette fortuitously lends the roughshod piece a twitchy, shot-from-the-hip, pseudo documentary feel that adds an additionally uncomfortable intimacy to John's murderous reign of sharpshooting terror. Even with Ken Foree's mesmerizingly menacing, screen dominating performance, 'D. C Sniper' remains a profoundly flawed, but not entirely ignoble psychodrama. Almost certainly NOT 'The-worst-film-ever-made!' as all too many fellow armchair pundits fallaciously claim, but Foree and Lommel's engaging screenplay is unafraid to confront some contentious subject matter, and for that I sincerely feel the unfairly trashed 'D. C Sniper' is worthy of an unprejudiced reappraisal.

Too Poor To Sit Through, Even If You Enjoy Bad Films

[wazinder · 1/10 · 13 May 2012]

I came into this movie as I enjoyed the 2003 film "D.C. Sniper - 23 Days of Fear" and have been interested in the Sniper shootings ever since.

I disregarded the negative reviews on IMDb as I felt my interest in the subject matter meant I could sit through a below average film. Not so! This film is a turd. The Acting is so bad I wonder if it is intentional from the film makers to make it appear like school grade Drama class but I miss the point if it was.

The story line, gifted to the film maker by actual events, has been squandered and somehow it has become really boring. I got no understanding of the Criminals mentality - or the Cops chasing them for that matter. Within 15 minutes my mind was starting to wander.

Fortunately watching on the PC meant I was able to minimise the screen and web surf to keep interest up. Be warned if you are watching on a TV set as resorting to scratching your eyeballs out may be a better alternative than viewing the entire movie.

Like other reviewers I have joined IMDb just to vent about this film. It is the worst I have ever seen. If you enjoy watching bad movies, for no other reason than they are bad movies, I would suggest you watch something like the 2010 movie Titanic II instead.

Swallowing Coal Is A Better Option

[nathan_tigers95 · 1/10 · 30 January 2012]

I could sit here and give you 100 reasons on why this movie was terrible, but it seams thats already been done instead ill write down 10 things id rather do. 1. Id rather eat a brick sandwich then to even think about the fact that i had to drive down to return this movie. 2. Id rather slow roast in a oven then have to watch this Samuel Jackson wannabe act again. 3. Id rather listen to a nickelback album 3 times in a row than watch this pathetic low budget cam cording disaster. 4. Id rather eat myself from the toe up then watch the first scene. 5. I would rather grind my teeth along a chalk board for 9 minutes then have to listen to that cockroach speak again. 6. Id rather jump in a pool of lava headfirst then to even look at the front cover again. 7. Id rather put a grenade in my mouth and pull the pin then think about this movie again. 8. And last but not least id rather slowly chop my own head off with a spoon and then feed myself to a pack of wolves then even think for one more minute that this movie somehow made it overseas. Thankyou and i hope this review helped

Acid to the eyes

[seanafrazer · 1/10 · 23 January 2012]

This movie was pig feces sitting in a boiling hot room. I never knew you could create an account on IMDb to review movies but I'm so glad that I opened an account just to write about THIS movie, if I was the director of this "film" I'd be wishing I was a statistic of the actual events. Michael J Fox would have had steadier camera work and at least boosted the poor acting qualities of a Samuel L. Jackson wannabe. The worst part is the lowest I can rate this movie is with a 1 out of 10. I will be forwarding my billing details to Ken Foree for a refund, sadly I may never get back those 20 minutes (the most I could watch) of my life. Thank you for your time.

No. Just no.

[robwilsonlaptop · 1/10 · 25 May 2021]

Just no.

Don't.

Looks like it was made by a 12-year-old with a camcorder, so much so that I actually wondered if this was really a film or just someone's school project. Seems like they didn't even have access to more than one microphone, as whenever anyone who isn't front and centre in front of the camera has any dialogue, you can barely hear them. Plus, seems like they couldn't afford a tripod either, as virtually every shot is wavering al all over the place (and not in an intentionally good way). No production values whatsoever.

Factually inaccurate across the board. Wrong car, wrong adaptation of the trunk of the car, wrong rifle, and many other glaring inaccuracies throughout.

Really, do anything else with your time other than watch this. Shame that there isn't a lower rating than one star.

Political Thriller

[rmeers2010 · 10/10 · 5 April 2010]

I'll have to agree with James Broder 100%, this is neither a serial killer film nor a horror flick, it's a political thriller, guys, and one that's actually got brains, that's why those who expect something else will be utterly disappointed. Ken Foree is awesome in this film, the screenplay, which he co-wrote, is superb and very smart and subversive. For anyone with a truly open and thinking mind this is a film I highly recommend. I saw it at the Ulli Lommel retrospective last year in December in Munich, Germany, where I spent Xmas vacation. Lommel was there in person and introduced the film and did a Q&A after the screening. I am beginning to understand the controversies surrounding this extraordinary director, who has worked with German genius Rainer Werner Fassbinder for ten years before joining forces with Andy Warhol in the late 70s. DC SNIPER is well made, a political docu-drama and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Done extremely well I think

[broder-james · 10/10 · 6 March 2010]

There's this horror flicks community out there thinking they got a lock on things. THIS AIN'T NO HORROR FLICK, guys! Alright? It's a political-drama. Starring Ken Foree and he is, sorry guys, he is outstanding. So is the camera work and some of the other acting, especially newcomer Tory Thompson as the shooter. I personally deplore horror flicks, that's why I first refused to take a look at this one, but then my girlfriend Ginny convinced me to give it a a chance, and I must say it's one hell of a a stunner! It's intelligently written, inventive and a political bomb shell. It presents the characters without taking positions, it just tells the story and what a story it is, man! It blew my mind! Lommel and Forres writing is terrific and it goes under the skin. Just don't expect a horror flick, or else you'll be disappointed and write one of those reviews that don't seem to get the point. I saw the movie five times and I'm lovin' it, sorry, horror fans!

DC Sniper

[startrekfan72 · 10/10 · 29 September 2015]

First off let me say this is NOT a Film for CHILDREN in NO way shape or form. This is Violence form the Get co This has very Inappropriate subject mater for any one under 16 and even then one should speak to there child. This film will make you think long and hard about events of our time past present, and about how sick some people are. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time it is a real tar tearjerker this was a insightful film well written and though out and Historically accurate it is a thought provoking film and one all mature minds will be talking about for some time, I would give this Ten out of Ten stars But I will say it again NOT a film for CHILDREN under Sixteen.

A utter waste of time

[Synicaly · 25 August 2023]

This film is god awful I like violent movies but god the way this was shot the scripting everything was just god awful I couldn't watch this film all the way through the endless rambling of the dad the victims getting shot was horrible not cause they died but the special fx blood etc all was just terrible the acting worst I've ever seen except for ken foree who was moderate but oh god this movie is just terrible I for one am not a person who hates bad acting like b movie acting but this this was like something filmed for a school project it's so bad words can't describe it I know there's other D. C Sniper movies out there that are probably way better then this one.

P. S don't waste your time with this one no wonder it's on free streaming services.