City Killer (1984) Online

Now this was one of those TV-movies I watched on cable as a kid and never forgot. Imagine the premise: a world class nut case enjoys DEMOLISHING tall office buildings WITH PEOPLE STILL INSIDE in an attempt to get the woman of his dreams!! Sure, it looked a bit cheesy as the footage of the collapsing buildings were -from what I remember- stock-footage of real (empty) buildings being demolished, but snappy editing made it look for real. One scene I'll never forget was when one of the supporting actors ran for his life down the emergency stairs as the floors above him where detonating one by one, sadly just when reaching the first floor the last charge detonated in his face and the entire office building came tumbling over him!

Back then Gerald McRaney was a hero of mine from the show "Simon & Simon" and the beautiful Heather Locklear was a superstar from her role as Sammy Jo on "Dynasty". They made a great team as a cop on the "city killers" trail and the girl on the killers mind.

For years I thought this would make a great re-make for the big screen but after the destruction of the twin towers in New York I can see why nobody would even dare to dream of such a re-make, despite the exciting premise that would have the CGI-guys going nuts!

What have we here? Heather Locklear (from 'Spin City' and 'T.J. Hooker' among other things) is being stalked by mad ex-lover Terence Knox (who I know best from 'Tour of Duty' and 'Children of the Corn II'), as the ex-marine/bomb-expert who wants her to realize that she should only be with him, and nobody else by demolishing a bunch of buildings in the city! His performance is really good, and kept me interested.

She falls in love with the psychologist/cop in charge of the situation, played by Gerald McRaney (who I haven't seen before). He helps her along the way, and predictably becomes her new lover. I also liked the role by Peter Mark Richman (who I know from 'Friday the 13th' and 'The Naked Gun 2½') as the police captain, who runs things.

There's a lot of nice shots of buildings being demolished, and good character development, although there aren't enough plot twists to make it thoroughly exciting.

But all in all a good way to spend an hour and a half. I even saw it on VHS, but that didn't ruin the experience, just made it look more 'old', and that was very fitting, since the movie is a bit out-dated.

CITY KILLER is one of those eventful little TV movies that America did so well back in the 1970s and 1980s. Long forgotten, of course, yet with a novel premise and plenty of decent moments, this is the sort of film that deserves reappraisal by modern movie fans.

The story is simple: pretty Heather Locklear is at the mercy of a sinister stalker, played to the sweaty hilt by Terence Knox. Knox is far from an ordinary film villain along the lines of other stalkers like Richard Thomas or Patrick Bergin, though; instead, he's a lunatic bomb who thinks of nothing else than demolishing a number of high-rise tower blocks in downtown USA! Cue lots of stock footage of real-life demolitions mixed with footage of people desperate to escape.

It's a crazy premise and yet one that works well due to the police procedural focus and the willingness of those involved to take the premise seriously. Locklear is a more than adequate as a woman at her wits' end, and there are interesting performances from character actors like Peter Mark Richman and Gerald McRaney as the cops assigned to protect her. Knox, meanwhile, is a hoot.

I remember actually watching this television movie when it was broadcast back in the day. I didn't particularly watch a lot of movies back then, so this was something of an exception. The reason I did so was that I knew that it starred Heather Locklear who was a rising star at the time due to her appearances in the cop show 'T.J Hooker' and the super-soap 'Dynasty'. As a young teen I recall quite clearly that Heather was one of the first women to generate some new interesting thoughts in my head. So of course I was going to sit with the family and watch this movie called City Killer.

A deranged demolition expert blackmails his ex-lover into getting back with him by systematically blowing up a series of high-rise buildings in the middle of a city.

When I saw it back in the day, I thought it was pretty good but nothing special. Having seen it again, all these years later, I still think that original assessment isn't too far off the mark. It obviously feels a little bit ropier now than it did back then though but for what it is, it's okay. It's a film that benefits from TV movie charm and is on the whole reliable without ever moving very far outside the box. One scene that did impress me a bit, however, was the part where we see a building basically fall apart only to see a helicopter immediately rise out and above it – this was a pretty convincing, dangerous looking and well executed shot I thought. In the final analysis though, this is middling stuff on the whole but certainly worth a viewing.

Since I watched this movie 19 years after it was originally made....it couldn't help but be a little dated....but it was a fair TV movie from the early 1980's. Heather Locklear is sweet and tiny and Gerald McRaney plays a cop well. It kept me interested, but wasn't really anything special.