Rampage (film)
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Rampage is a 1988 movie directed by William Friedkin. It was filmed in Stockton, California in 1986
Alex McArthur plays a serial killer named Charlie Reece, who commits a number of brutal mutilation-slayings in order to drink blood as a result of paranoid delusions. He is loosely based on the real-life murderer Richard Chase.
Reece is soon captured and most of the movie revolves around the trial and the prosecutor's attempts to have Reece found sane and given the death penalty whilst defense lawyers argue that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity.
The prosecutor, Anthony Fraser (played by Michael Biehn), was previously against capital punishment but seeks such a penalty in the face of Reece's brutal crimes after some soul-searching, as well as meeting a grief-stricken man who lost his wife and one of his young sons to the killer's actions.
In the end, Reece is found sane and given the death sentence, but Fraser's internal debate about capital punishment is rendered academic when Reece cheats the executioner by committing suicide.
The crimes Reece commits are slightly different to those the real Richard Chase carried out; Reece kills three women, a man and a young boy, whilst Chase killed two men, two women, a young boy and a 22-month-old baby. Additionally, Reece escapes at one point, murdering two guards and later a priest, which Chase did not do in real life. However, Reece and Chase were similar in that they both had a history of mental illness and an obsession with drinking blood. Like Reece, Chase was also was sentenced to death but killed himself before such a sentence could be carried out.
