DVD Review - 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck

100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck
Director: N/A
Starring: Jim Shipley, Tony Lee Beson
Studio: The ASYLUM
ASIN: B007UTB5JO
Release Date: July 24, 2012
Running Time: 90 minutes
Rating: Unrated - Contains scenes of strong sexual content, disturbing violence, and horror

Late at night on July 13, 1966, Richard Speck entered the 2319 East 100th Street townhouse that was serving as a dormitory for student nurses and took eight women hostages. Over the course of several hours, Speck murdered six of the eight women by either stabbing or strangling them to death. The seventh victim was raped and then strangled. The eighth woman managed to escape by hiding under the bed. Speck must have lost count, as a ninth woman, who was visiting the other women, stayed hidden until the next morning when she yelled out the window for help.

The police found a smudged fingerprint that belonged to Speck at the crime scene. The police found Speck only after he attempted suicide at a hotel. Speck was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death on November 22, 1968. On November 21, 1972, a judge reversed the death sentence and re-sentenced him to 400 to 1,200 years in prison. Speck was later given the nickname "Birdman" because he kept a pair of sparrows in his cell. Speck died on December 5, 1991 from a heart attack.

2319 East 100th Street has become one of the most haunted places in Chicago. The ASYLUM Home Entertainment has recently released their newest horror movie to DVD and Blu-Ray titled 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck that was filmed in a documentary style in the tradition of the Blair Witch Project.

In the film a group of paranormal investigators investigated the famous townhouse back in 2010, in which nobody survived the night. The Illinois police release the video footage to the public. The townhouse is surrounded by a metal gate, which locks the investigators inside. Cell phones do not work because of the paranormal activity, leaving them with no way of contacting the outside. They are trained ghost investigators with the latest gizmos and gadgets, and they are all hoping to make contact with a ghost, but unknowingly to them the ghost of Richard Speck is there and he doesn't like outsiders. One by one, the investigators are brutally murdered by unseen Speck.

I'm not into documentary style horror films, but it really does work in 100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck. The grainy film helps give them the movie a feel of reality. I've seen many low-budget horrors, in which most have bad acting, but all the actors in 100 Ghost Street give above average performances, making me to actually believe that I was watching real ghost hunters on "live" television. What makes the plot freaky is that Richard Speck was actually a real mass-murderer. The house used in the film is not the real 2319 East 100th Street townhouse as I assumed no film company can ever be allowed to film a horror movie there. There are no credits at the end of the movie, making the viewer believe that the movie actually happened, when it is really a fictional horror tale. 100 Ghost Streets proves that you don't have to spend millions of dollars to create a good horror movie. I'm glad that you never actually see Richard Speck, only a few quick ghostly glimpses toward the end. I was pleasantly surprised that I liked the movie for what it was - an old-fashioned horror movie.