Review of Fall Down Dead

Christmas Eve. Spunky single mother Christie Wallace (a sturdy and appealing performance by Dominique Swain) witnesses a brutal slaying in a back alley by The Picasso Killer (ably played with smooth menace by the ever-reliable Udo Kier), a vicious psycho with a nasty penchant for carving up beautiful young women. Christie and a small group of strangers find themselves trapped in an office building with the wacko following a citywide blackout. Director Jon Keeyes, working from a compact script by Roy Sallows, relates the compelling story at a snappy pace, builds a reasonable amount of tension, delivers a pleasing plenitude of grotesque bloody violence, draws the main characters with some depth, and tosses in some tasty gratuitous female nudity and a little soft-core sex for trashy good measure. The sound acting from the capable cast keeps the picture on track: Mehmet Gunsur as the burnt-out Detective Stefan Kercheck, R. Keith Davis as Kercheck's easygoing partner Detective Lawrence Kellog, Monica Dean as scared religious cleaning lady Helen Ritter, and Austin James as cowardly yuppie Michael Yaeger. David Carradine has a colorful and amusing secondary part as bumbling fuddy dud security guard Wade Douglas. But it's the always welcome and delightfully quirky presence of Kier as an extremely suave, relentless, and arrogant maniac who fancies himself as a kind of demented artist that makes this movie so much fun to watch; Udo's a real hoot as he calmly bumps folks off and serenely taunts Christie by promising to make her his greatest artistic masterpiece. Richard Clabaugh's glossy cinematography makes neat use of shadowy lighting. Pinar Toprak's rattling score hits the spirited shivery spot. A hugely enjoyable slasher thriller.