bemsil Review of The China Lake Murders

The China Lake Murders (1990 TV Movie)

An absorbing tale of a serial killer's ways and means.

[10/10 · 3 September 2006]

The desert plays a central role in this fascinating portrayal of a serial killer's mad pursuit of self-fulfillment. Michael Parks's character—a big-city police officer who spends his vacation in the desert killing people—is as simple and arid as the desert he makes his yearly hunting ground, a place where his victims fall into his deadly trap as quickly and easily as a rodent in a rattlesnake's jaws. Parks's character lacks passion and depth in a way that suggests, paradoxically, a cavernous psychosis. His eyes are pitiless and impenetrable, and his slow, quiet way of talking gradually shifts from easy friendliness to menacing madness. Tom Skerritt offers an equally adept performance as a sheriff who at first simply wants to help out a fellow officer. The more his suspicions of this odd newcomer grow, the deeper into self-destructive madness does the killer descend. The sheriff's understated normalcy provides an effective measure of the killer's increasing detachment from reality. The fact that the killer has no clear motive to kill the people he chooses on empty stretches of desert highway makes the story all the more compelling and memorable. The murders are pointless to everyone except the killer, and he ain't talking.