THE CLOVEHITCH KILLER (2018)

Studio:      IFC Midnight
Director:    Duncan Skiles
Writer:      Christopher Ford
Producer:  Andrew Kortschak, Cory Ryder, Walter Kortschak, Christopher Ford, Duncan Skiles
Stars:     Dylan McDermott, Charlie Plummer, Samantha Mathis, Lance Chantiles-Wertz, Madisen Beaty

Review Score:

---

Summary:

A teenage Boy Scout raised in a small Christian community comes to suspect his father could be a notorious serial killer.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

16-year-old Boy Scout Tyler Burnside participates in an annual ceremony to honor the victims of ‘Clovehitch,’ a local serial killer named after his preferred knot who has been inactive for ten years. Later, Tyler secretly takes his scoutmaster father Don’s truck to meet his crush Amy. Amy becomes immediately wary of Tyler when she finds a bondage pornography picture tucked beside the truck’s passenger seat.

As devout Christians active in their parish, Tyler goes to church with his father Don, his mother Cindy, his little sister Susie, and Don’s catatonic brother Rudy, who lives in a care facility. Tyler learns from his friend Billy that Amy started a rumor he is a pervert. Billy also points out Kassi, a socially ostracized girl fascinated with true crime who strangely hangs around outside their church.

Curious about his father’s secretive behavior, Tyler sneaks into Don’s locked shed while his parents are away. Underneath a floorboard, Tyler finds a box of BDSM pornography along with a Polaroid of a bound woman labeled “Nora – Lucky’s favorite.” Don later notices that the shed’s lock was disturbed.

Suspicious that the Polaroid could be connected to Clovehitch, Tyler does online research and learns that one of the killer’s victims was named Nora Devlin. Cindy catches Tyler on the computer and scolds him under the presumption he was looking at pornography. Don later has an odd “sex talk” with Tyler.

With Billy refusing to speak to him, Tyler turns to Kassi to learn more about Clovehitch. Kassi takes Tyler to the house where she lives with Barbara Donnelly, who wrote a book about Clovehitch, and shows him Barbara’s files on the case. Kassi explains that she hangs out at the church where a victim’s locket was found hoping to discover another clue about the killer. Kassi adds that she believes there are new victims who have not yet been connected to the case.

Tyler tells his parents he is doing volunteer work in order to secretly spend more time doing research with Kassi. Don follows his son and, concluding Tyler just has a new girlfriend, has Tyler invite Kassi to their house for an awkward dinner.

Tyler finally admits to Kassi that he suspects his father could be Clovehitch. Kassi laughs off the suggestion.

When the clue regarding the name “Lucky” on Nora Devlin’s Polaroid rings a bell, Kassi returns to Tyler. The two of them sneak into Don’s shed, but discover the hidden box is missing. However, they find a blueprint for a homemade torture dungeon.

Tyler explores the crawlspace underneath his house and discovers the dungeon. Tyler also finds a box of Clovehitch mementos, which include driver’s licenses for all of the victims.

Don insists on taking Tyler camping in the woods. Don reveals that he knows Tyler found the items in the shed and under the house. Don explains that his invalid brother Rudy was Clovehitch, and Don merely kept everything because he didn’t know what to do and wished to protect their family.

Tyler tells his father that they need to either give everything to the police or destroy it. Tyler watches as Don burns all of the evidence, including Polaroids of the victims.

Kassi interrupts a scout meeting to show Tyler more crime scene photos. Tyler tries explaining that he was wrong about Don being Clovehitch. Billy finds Tyler and Kassi with the photos and a fight ensues. Pastor Randy has a talk with Tyler about the altercation.

Kassi takes Tyler to Nora Devlin’s former home where they kiss for the first time. Kassi reveals that as a small child, she witnessed Clovehitch murdering her mother Crystal Harper, but no one believed her. Tyler remembers Crystal’s name from the driver’s licenses found under the house. Kassi asks Tyler to question if he is truly certain that his uncle is Clovehitch and not his father.

Tyler’s parents send him away to leadership camp. Tyler secretly begins stalking Don with Kassi.

Don convinces Cindy to visit her mother with Susie, leaving him alone in the house. Don and Cindy try to have sex before she leaves, but Don is unable to get an erection.

Don begins stalking a random woman met at a grocery store. Tyler and Kassi witness Don and the woman’s first encounter.

At home alone, Don takes Polaroids of himself wearing a mask and his wife’s clothes to simulate the bondage photos he destroyed. Tyler sneaks inside to enable the GPS tracker on Don’s phone. To provide a distraction, Kassi comes to the door for a brief encounter with Don. Don later becomes frustrated when he realizes the simulated Polaroids fail to arouse him.

Tyler and Kassi see Don mark the grocery store woman’s house with a clovehitch knot. Don also takes Rudy to church and continues leading his Boy Scout troop.

Don breaks into the grocery store woman’s home and takes her captive. Tyler unexpectedly enters with a rifle to confront his father at gunpoint. Kassi unties the unconscious woman.

Don continues claiming he isn’t Clovehitch by explaining he and the woman are merely having a kinky affair. Don knocks Kassi unconscious when she tries taking his handgun. Getting into his son’s head, Don convinces Tyler to hand over the rifle.

Tyler realizes who his father truly is when Don pulls the trigger while aiming at his son. However, the gun does not fire. A struggle ensues where Don begins choking Tyler. Kassi recovers and knocks out Don with a lamp.

Tyler stops Kassi from calling 911. Since she didn’t see Don’s face, Tyler and Kassi realize the victim can’t identify him. Wanting justice without hurting Tyler’s family with the terrible truth, Tyler and Kassi take Don to the woods where Tyler shoots him in the head. Police later find Don’s body and rule his death a suicide. Tyler keeps Clovehitch’s true identity secret as he affectionately eulogizes Don at a Boy Scout ceremony.

---

Review:

I wasn’t particularly excited going into “The Clovehitch Killer.” The Los Angeles Film Festival screening guide summarized it by saying, “a teenage boy starts to suspect that his wholesome, all-American dad is actually the serial killer terrorizing their small town.”

Déjà vu was a deterrent, as I’d seen several coming-of-age stories tucked inside this setup before, most recently in “Summer of 84” (review here). Not only that, thrillers based on an “is he or isn’t he?” premise generally have a hard time sustaining suspense because “he” always turns out to be the person that the Boy Who Cried Wolf suspected he was in the first place.

To the relieved reversal of my erroneous presumptions, “The Clovehitch Killer” doesn’t present itself as a predictable “true identity” mystery. The truth about Don Burnside, a family man and scoutmaster active in his Christian community, is only temporarily teased as a question with two possible answers. Consequently, 16-year-old Tyler’s arc of discovery isn’t really about finding out whether his father is or isn’t the elusive killer called ‘Clovehitch.’ The film’s emotional center instead themes itself around forcing your head to accept an uncomfortable fact your heart unfortunately already knows.

Screenwriter Christopher Ford never attempts to hide that “The Clovehitch Killer” is based on the real-life case of Dennis ‘BTK’ Rader, right down to giving Don a goatee and glasses. Dylan McDermott sells the seemingly average man’s sweet side with a touch too much cinematic schmaltz. Maybe McDermott means for his smile to appear overeager when he presents a soda to his son as “our little secret.” A scene of mom, dad, and little sister singing and dancing while doing dishes has less of an excuse for applying sentimentality so thickly.

But when Don turns dark, McDermott takes his persona to chilling places that the actor has seldom explored before. Tension still refrains from tying too tightly. By design, “The Clovehitch Killer” doesn’t hit quite the same wavelength as say David Fincher’s “Zodiac” as far as skin-crawlingly realistic creepiness is concerned. Yet the film is consistently eerie in the psychological implications of its most naked moments, such as whenever an anchored camera starkly captures true terror hidden inside outwardly unassuming suburban homes.

Although the movie models itself on true events, it isn’t overly concerned with the crimes, and is only peripherally interested in the killer. Just as Stephen King’s “A Good Marriage” takes a look at BTK from the vantage point of a wife that popular opinion believes should have sensed something, “The Clovehitch Killer” dissects a similar situation from the perspective of a suspected murderer’s child.

“The Clovehitch Killer” is Tyler’s personal tale of growing through a cracked shell of innocence. Serial killer stories rarely peer through such a lens, making this movie a fascinating look inside the aftershocks of horrible actions on an indirect victim. Scenes unsettle due to how close they come to reflecting awful realities. “The Clovehitch Killer” becomes less focused on fictionalized shocks like a traditional thriller, and more interested in instilling dreadful atmospheric sadness along the lines of “My Friend Dahmer” (review here).

Alleviating concerns of having too straight of a story, “The Clovehitch Killer” includes a memorable moment that isn’t a twist so much as an unexpected revelation cleverly concealed by a timeline trick. The technique works wonderfully to steal a viewer’s breath without warning. The film then dares to return to this well a second time. By then, the narrative takes a mild hit of momentary confusion it doesn’t necessarily benefit from just to construct its juxtaposed conclusion.

Other missteps and misdirects, such as a shoehorned kiss between Tyler and his companion, or Don tipping the audience to his bloodhound sense by trailing the teens too early, trip up “The Clovehitch Killer’s” rhythm whenever it tries following too closely to typical movie formula. When that rhythm refocuses on what truly makes the movie’s heart beat, namely Tyler’s tragic self-reflection, “The Clovehitch Killer” creates an atypical serial killer thriller with intangibly haunting consequences for its characters and audience alike.

Review Score: 80

---