Rampage - Presskit Page 3

"RAMPAGE" PRODUCTION NOTES

"He's a good person who needs all the love I've got." -- Mother of serial killer.

Academy Award winning director William Friedkin has courted controversial subjects before in films like "Cruising," and "To Live and Die in LA." This time Friedkin tears open the criminal justice system in his new thought-provoking thriller, "Rampage".

"It's the most passionate film I've ever made," says William Friedkin, "It's about something that I'm deeply concerned about."

Using a stark, understated style, Friedkin documents the bizarre crimes and trial of the nonchalant, boy-next-door murderer, Charles Reece (portrayed by Alex McArthur). The film tiptoes through a labyrinth of psychiatric and legalistic intrigues that eventually threaten to get Reece, like many of his real-life counterparts, off the hook.

"This film explores a loophole in criminal law -- the Insanity defense --that allows a criminal act, like someone committing murder, to become irrelevant," Friedkin comments. "The relevant question becomes, 'What was this person's state of mind when he committed the murder?' And in that process the rights of the victim are completely steamrollered."

Friedkin steers clear of the sensational aspects of Reece's murders, and delivers a frighteningly straightforward account of their aftermath. He zeroes in on the ordeals of the troubled young District Attorney, Anthony Fraser, and the survivors of Reece's rampage: people like Gene Tippetts, a middle-aged man, who is left with his four year old son trying to pick up the shattered pieces of his life.

Miramax Films presents "Rampage," starring Michael Biehn, Alex McArthur, Nicholas Campbell, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, John Harkins and Art La Fleur. Directed by William Friedkin, the screenplay by William Friedkin is based on the novel by William P. Wood. The film is produced by David Salven. The Director of Photography is Robert D. Yeoman, and the original music is by Ennio Morricone.

"Rampage" brings audiences face to face with a story as hard-hitting and timely as the evening news. On a cool December afternoon in California, just a few days before Christmas, a young man wearing a red parka and sunglasses strolls down a suburban street. He pushes open the screen door to Mrs. Eileen Tippetts' kitchen. She is washing the lunch dishes and her son is at the table. Moments later, her hands barely dry, she is lying dead on the kitchen floor. Charles Reece's fourth victim in a week.

Thousands of macabre, senseless crimes like this occur every year in the United States. Since we are all vulnerable, we are all possible victims. We wait almost fervently, for the outcomes of criminal trials, be they of the Jeffrey Dahmer variety, or the Amy Fisher. A national obsession with the causes and consequences of violence has spawned such movies as "Silence of the Lambs" and "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer". These films reflect the ongoing uncertainty Americans feel about our society's responsibility for the crime and mayhem that has spread across the country. Insecurity and fear have provoked demands for the reinstatement of capital punishment, and an end to the use of the insanity plea to evade, what the survivors of murder victims deem, fair justice.

"Justice will not be served until the execution happens," one survivor, Kenneth J. Condon told the Los Angeles Times last march, a month before Robert Alton Harris was executed for killing two of Condon's teenage cousins 14 years before. At the time of the murders in 1978, Harris was on parole for a voluntary manslaughter conviction. After being convicted and sentenced to death for premeditated murder of the two teenagers, Harris and his lawyers spent thirteen years appealing his sentence. They began by appealing on the grounds that the jury had been prejudiced by pretrial publicity, subsequently they argued that California's death penalty discriminated against men, and finally they alleged, in more recent appeals, that Harris's mental state had not been completely analyzed by trial psychiatrists (in other words they had failed to detect his insanity).

"Rampage" is loosely based on a similar case, that of Richard Chase, as told in the novel "Rampage" by former Sacramento, California District Attorney William P. Wood. Wood, who served as technical advisor on the film, was present on the set during the important courtroom scenes. In the film, the jury must decide if Charles Reece is insane and therefore eligible for treatment and, eventually, parole. If they find him sane he could be executed.

Michael Biehn portrays Anthony Fraser, the young District Attorney who has to seek the death penalty for Reece, even though it compromises his liberal beliefs. It is Fraser's responsibility to piece together a rational motive for Reece's strange and gruesome crimes, in order to prove that Reece is, in fact, sane. Yet, what he - and the audience - discover is that there are no clearcut conclusions as to why Reece murders - only conflicting opinions and evidence. Can Reece, who claims that he is in a battle with Satan and hears voices - be judged sane by rational standards? Does the fact that Reece carefully prepared for and covered up his crimes indicate sanity and an awareness that his actions were patently wrong? Difficult enough questions to answer, without being compounded by the agendas of the medical community, the legal system and even the subconscious pressures working on the District Attorney himself - all forces that come to play a role in determining the fateful verdict. At the emotional pitch of his summation, Fraser takes out a stop watch and asks the jurors to pause for three minutes of silence. "This is how long it took for just one of Reece's victims to die," he says. Those long, last few precious minutes of life remind the jurors and the audience just how quickly and brutally one's family, and future can be taken away forever.

Using an almost docu-dramatic style, "Rampage" becomes a troubling reflection of contemporary society, peering into corners of our existence that appear eerily familiar, yet are unrecognizable. This dramatic contradiction of terms is a terrain quite familiar to Friedkin, an Oscar winner for his direction of "The French Connection." That film, combined with "The Exorcist", received a total of 17 Academy Award nominations and seven statuettes. Other Friedkin films have raised questions about social issues and have had a strong impact, "Rampage" , is his twelfth motion picture, promises to do the same.

"Rampage" marks a significant departure from his previous film roles for Michael Biehn, who plays Fraser, the District Attorney assigned the mixed blessing of having to prosecute Reece for murder. Biehn was most recently seen in "K2". He also played opposite Sigourney Weaver in the blockbuster hit "Aliens," opposite Arnold schwarzenegger in "The Terminator," and Lauren Bacall in "The Fan," in which he played the title role.

Alex McArthur tackles his first starring role in a feature film playing Reece, the murderer. He won critical acclaim for his performances in "Desert Hearts" and the television movie "Desperado," but he is probably best known as Madonna's boyfriend in her popular video "Papa Don't Preach".

Along with William P. Wood (former Sacramento District Attorney and author of the novel "Rampage"), Dr. Aaron Stern, former president of the MPAA Ratings System and now a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City, provided expertise as a technical advisor to the film.

"Rampage" was made in 1987 by the DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group. The distribution has been held up in a series of legal entanglements related to the closure of that company. Miramax recently secured distribution rights for the film and restored it to Friedkin's original vision. Friedkin's documentary sensibility has captured the terrifying reality of a legal paradox that continue to trouble our society.

ON VICTIMS' RIGHTS, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, AND THE INSANITY DEFENSE.

"Rampage" raises troubling questions about the nature of the nature of the American judicial system and challenges viewers to question their own beliefs and prejudices.

"I tend not to see things in a black or white way," says Friedkin, "I see a lot of sides to things."

One of the salient aspects of "Rampage" is its concern for the plight of victims. The tragic impact of murder on the surviving family members is all but forgotten in the hurlyburly surrounding a trial.

"When one person kills another, there is immediate revulsion at the nature of the crime. But in a short time the dead person ceases to exist as an identifiable figure," writes psychiatrist and author, Willard Gaylin. "...The ongoing reality is the criminal -- trapped, anxious and now helpless, isolated, often badgered and bewildered. He usurps the compassion that is justly his victims due."

Until very recently, homicide family survivors were barred from the courtrooms until they testified. They were, according to the National Victim Center, seldom provided with separate waiting areas, forcing them to be in close contact, if not face-to-face with the criminal's family during trial breaks. In death penalty cases, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in two cases (1989 and 1990) that victim impact statements -- which allow family survivors to tell the sentencing court about how the homicide affected them -- were prejudicial and unconstitutional in capital cases. The high Court reversed itself in 1991, upholding the constitutionality of victim impact statements in capital cases.

Although thousands of criminals have been sentenced to die, capital punishment is rarely carried out. Instead as more and more violent offenders are sentenced for their crimes, more appeals are filed (under the umbrella of habeas corpus) to overturn their conviction. Often the use of habeas corpus, as in the Robert Alton Harris case, seems to extend forever, leaving victims with a hollow feeling of endless loss and injustice. As violent crime and frustration with the criminal justice system have mounted, homicide family survivors have banded together in mutual support groups. This growing grass roots movement offers help and hope to millions of Americans whose lives have been devastated by the sudden, tragic, violent death of a loved one. Under the auspices of organizations such as Parents of Murdered Children, and The National Victim Center have joined forces to not only support each other's recovery, but to change laws and attitudes about violence and victimization. One result has been a growing outcry, among Americans, for the reform of habeas corpus laws and the reinstatement of capital punishment.

"I started out against the death penalty," says Friedkin. "The first film I ever made was a documentary {The People vs. Crump} about a black man on death row in Chicago. I made the film to save him from the chair, which the film did. I must say now that my attitude is different. In "Rampage", I tried to make a film that's an argument both for and against capital punishment, which is really where I stand."

In the United States, capital punishment is legal in 38 states. In 1991 there were 2,588 prisoners on death row. Only 14 were actually sent to their death. Ironically, the death penalty no longer exists in Europe and most of the other nations of the former Soviet block have abolished it. {Thousands of executions, though, continue to take place in China and Iran).

In order to avoid death sentences for their clients, lawyers have increasingly turned to an insanity defense. However, the very success of some of these "not guilty by reason of insanity" pleas, has sparked a growing movement to reform laws that govern insanity pleas.

Prior to the trial of John Hinckley Jr. {who was acquitted), the broadly interpreted insanity defense law basically stated that an accused criminal was not responsible for his conduct if it was the product of mental disease or defect. A more moderate approach required that the accused be considered not guilty if he or she did not have "the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct." However, since Hinckley's unpopular acquittal, 38 states have reformed their laws and several states have introduced legislation which mandates a sentence of "guilty and insane". This new sentence allows a judge to decide whether a convicted offender should be sentenced to a mental institution or a prison, and furthermore it allows, in some cases, for an offender -- when he is eventually deemed "sane" -- to then be transferred to a prison, rather than being released back into society.