Manhunt: Search for the Night Stalker [DVD]

I have always wondered why Richard Ramirez was not dubbed"The Night Prowler" just like the title of the old AC/DC tune. Stalkers tend to case their potential victims. Where as a Prowler just chooses a residence totally at random, not really caring who is inside and who his potential victim(s) of that particular evening are going to be. The movie had very decent acting, a very close to real life plot, and was in my opinion very well done. The actor who played Ramirez really shined at the end when in the interrogation room. He also played a hit man in 'Scarface' and the hospital janitor in the movie 'Cobra'. I thought he was chillingly convincing. The DVD was well worth the money.

I already owned the vhs tape, but was glad to see that they finally came out with it on dvd. It's pretty close to what happened to Ramirez. The actors did a good job. I really liked the movie.

I don't really understand all the good reviews of this movie. The Netflix documentary is so much better, and even though we all knew the ending there, the writers knew how to create an air of suspense - something I felt was totally missing in this movie. I did not feel the tension here at all. Just showing some violence and gory crime scenes, and detectives talking being worn out instead of looking it, wasn't doing the trick. I was bored silly half way through. As with most TV B-movies - the acting was also B grade - and some performances way worse than that. I thought the two wives of the detectives and the journalist lady were particularly awful. Gotta love Hollywood too. Take a guy like Gil Carrillo - and his real life wife too - (don't get me wrong, perfectly lovely, everyday average and average looking folks) - and put in A. Martinez to play Gil? - and some equally sex pot lady to play Pearl? Really? Mrs. Carrillo in real life, from the Netflix documentary, seemed like a very dignified, attractive lady, not you're everyday run of the mill sexpot. And A. Martinez? He can hold all the burritos he wants to hold, in his hand, but there's no way he's convincing as a big eater - which clearly, again from the documentary, the real life Detective Carrillo is! You could simply say - well, it's fun for real life people to be played by bombshell actors that don't resemble them at all - (plus audience prefer bombshells) - but whenever they go over the top to do that kind of ratings grabber stuff - it takes a whole lot away from the authenticity of a film. Finally - the truth is - no actor could ever depict the real life Richard Ramirez - who even in still photographs sends a shiver up the old spine - whenever one looks at him. Those evil evil eyes - and demented smile - man oh man! Brrrrrr....

Very creepy I lived in California at that time,It tells it just as it happened scary 5 stars.

At one point in this film, a television executive -- he was a male of course, since the film was set in the 80s -- puts his arm around a female reporter who works at the station, just before he walks her out to her car. She didn't feel comfortable being out in the parking lot by herself, but could you blame her? It was the mid-80s, and Richard Ramirez was still on the loose. But did she really think that some male executive could really protect her against a monster such as Mr. Ramirez? Probably not.But she might have sued the male executive for sexual harassment, although that kind of craziness didn't really start happening until around 1990. So while she wasn't safe having an escort, that male executive was probably safe at that time from a sexual harassment lawsuit. Ah, how times have changed. We are probably safer today since there are fewer people around who are as horrible as Mr. Ramirez was, but we're surely less protected from frivolous lawsuits.I just read the book "Night Stalker" by Philip Carlo -- a fairly riveting read although I "only" gave it a 4 on this site and wrote a review, saying why -- so I just had to see this film. After all, Mr. Ramirez actually watched this film himself with the detectives portrayed in this film who were chasing him, inside the county jail. Those detectives were nice enough to record the TV show on VHS tape and take that tape to the jail with them so that Mr. Ramirez could view an encore presentation; they even brought him popcorn. (Mr. Ramirez, while he had TV privileges in prison, was not allowed to watch the first showing of "Manhunt" for punishment due to bad court behavior. It's one thing to kill people, but swear at a judge? Tsk tsk.)Yes, I will admit that this review is somewhat snarky, but I had to pay $35 bones to purchase it, and it was a used DVD. Plus, it was originally filmed in 480i, cropped, and not in HD, but luckily for me, I watched it in upconverted 1080P, which was still pretty poor, to tell you the truth. But what can you expect? Back then, no one had cell phones -- watch people running into homes to call the cops towards the end -- no one had HD at that time, and evidently, most people had VHS. Ah, happier times. . . .I thought that the man who plays Mr. Ramirez here didn't exactly work for me. Mr. Ramirez was pretty tall in real life, and while I usually don't care if an actor looks like who he is playing, in this case height did matter. After all, that was a great part of what made people scared of Mr. Ramirez. Sure, the actor had bad teeth -- probably not his own would be my guess, probably prosthetics -- but that wasn't enough to make him seem real or really scary to me. The detectives weren't bad here, especially the Hispanic partner (I'm still trying to determine his name).I watched the film "Night Stalker" a while back, and for me, it was pretty much a misfire. So, I decided that I wanted to see if I could find a good movie about Mr. Ramirez. Well, I guess that I will have to keep searching. Hollywood, Mr. Ramirez was nice enough to get cancer and die, which was a lot nicer than the state of California was for letting him live about 30 years too long. So, why not make a good movie about him now, especially since you won't have to cough up any royalties about his life?

There were a few details in this made for television drama about The Night Stalker that had been switched around but this was fairly accurate in most of the details . I study criminology and narcissistic behavior... the Night Stalker case was one of my first I studied and for the low budget that was used... I am impressed .Most of the acting felt real and most of the scenes were not overly dramatized . I minused a star... I would have liked to have seen this version as a movie in a theater with a bigger budget , most of the same cast , and more focus on accurate details .All in all I rate this 4 out 5 stars... I saw the effort that went into this on the budget that they had used and to give this film less than 4 stars would not show how much I appreciated the work that went into "Manhunt: Search for the Night Stalker" . I will watch this again .

Classic favorite, re-living my childhood fears, lol!

it was great. i lived in southern california when all this was going on. pat