Cold Light of Day (1989)

Cold Light of Day: Directed by Fhiona-Louise. With Bob Flag, Martin Byrne-Quinn, Geoffrey Greenhill, Mark Hawkins. Fictionalized account based on the actions of serial killer Dennis Nilsen.

“Between 1978 and 1983, Dennis Nilsen – an outwardly unremarkable former soldier and police officer turned civil servant – killed at least fifteen men and boys (most of them students or homeless) in gruesome circumstances, allegedly retaining the corpses for sex acts before disposing of the butchered remains by hiding them in cupboards, under the floorboards, or simply by flushing them down the toilet. This grimy, clammy, little-seen independent film is a lightly fictionalised account of Nilsenu0026#39;s hideous deeds, with a standout performance from Bob Flag as the milquetoast murderer, here renamed Jorden March.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFhiona Louiseu0026#39;s film, clearly made on a shoestring budget, steers clear of exploitation tactics, choosing instead to cast its characters adrift in a singularly bleak, uncaring and desolate world of tatty pubs, squalid bed-sits, greasy cafés and grubby bathrooms. The police interrogation of March is inter-cut with flashbacks that reveal not just his crimes (a living room disembowelment and the discovery of whatu0026#39;s blocking the drains will send a shiver down the spines of even the hardiest souls) but also provide a window of understanding into what has tipped the apparently kindly loner over the edge. Louiseu0026#39;s direction is unobtrusive and detached, allowing the lengthy exchanges between the characters to play out in several lengthy takes, but itu0026#39;s this cold, flat, cinema-verité style that affords the proceedings much of their chilling power, conveying the sense that such horrors really could be unfolding in the street, or even the house, just around the corner.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eItu0026#39;s an easy film to admire – it won several awards – but itu0026#39;s not an easy film to watch, let alone enjoy. As a fitting footnote, a caption card dedicates the preceding horrors to u0026quot;those too sensitive for this worldu0026quot; – which, in his own perverse and twisted way, Nilsen surely was.”