CIRCUMSTANCES UNKNOWN is a made-for-TV movie about a serial killer who drowns his victims and leaves flowers at their funerals. It expounds on the well-worn thesis that psychotics do the darndest things for the silliest reasons, but breaks no new ground.
Paul Kinsey (Judd Nelson) drowns a woman swimmer in Cold Creek Lake. He attends her funeral, since he is both a friend of her brother, Martin (Phillip Mackenzie), and her fiance, Tim Reuschel (William R. Moses), and deposits a bouquet of irises on the coffin. Her death is considered accidental.
Ten years later, Paul is a jeweler in Vancouver. All three men are still friends, and Tim buys an iris-patterned ring for his wife, Deena (Isabel Glasser), from Paul. Paul sells another iris ring to a young couple, then he drowns the woman in her bathtub. When Tim, Deena, and their young son John
(Rhys Huber) leave to vacation at the lake, Paul follows surruptitiously and stalks them. John spots him, but is ignored when he tells Tim and Deena. Rafting on Cold Creek, Tim leaves his family to scout the rapids ahead; Paul drowns him. Mimi Trakas (Pat Armstrong), a stroke victim who lives with
her grownup daughter, Arlene (Mikal Dughi), sees the killing, but she can't talk. Deena is sure Tim was murdered and starts looking for proof. Paul shows up to thwart her efforts. He steals photos which show someone hiding in the bushes. He smooth talks John. When Deena meets the Trakases, he
kills Mimi, before she can reveal his guilt. When his father accuses him, he throws him downstairs. Finally, under suspicion, he kidnaps Deena and rows around the lake with her until a vision of his mother, whom he also drowned, calls him to a watery grave.
Adapted from a novel by Jonellen Heckler, CIRCUMSTANCES UNKNOWN is full of loose ends. Martin does almost nothing, Tim is killed too early, John disappears before the finale and Paul is apropriately lugubrious, but lacks intensity. The bit players fare better: Tom Pickett's town sheriff is a good
drunken ignoramus, the photo clerk (Peter Hanlon) is dapper and fey, and Mimi Trakas briefly steals the show, screaming inarticulately and ringing her little bell.
Each time Paul kills, the film cuts to flashbacks of his childhood, in which his father abuses him and steals his mother's affection. In the final flashback, a 12 year-old Paul drowns his mom in a swimming pool. In the film's only interesting touch, Blue iris, Mom's favorite flower, remain colored
in the otherwise black and white flashbacks. But this homage to RUMBLEFISH is crudely symbolic (blue equals water, flowers equal Mom, etc.) and the flashbacks themselves don't reveal any traumas sufficent to provide a psychological explanation for Paul's behaviour and his iris obsession: why does
he kill his mom? Why does he keep killing?
CIRCUMSTANCES UNKNOWN's score and cinematography are unexceptional. Its acting is competent, not inspired. It sinks into the video pool, trailing bubbles. (Violence.) leave a comment
