The Rain Killer(1990)

The Rain Killer is  low budget independent film starring Ray Sharkey , David Beecroft and Maria Ford ( in a small role as a murdered stripper). It is rarely seen and largely does not appear on the credits of any of the actors.

The plot concerns the murders of well-to-do women, all mysteriously done away with at night, and only when it rains. At the beginning of the film, we witness the killer stalk a woman till the underground station, and then as the woman hurriedly boards a train to escape the looming threat, she is stabbed several times on her chest and abdomen. When the police reach the murder scene, they discover no clues of importance- for instance one passenger describes the killer as "a man with a hat, overcoat and sunglasses with reflective lenses..he seemed out of place", which does not lead anywhere. They also find a plastic raincoat on the rail tracks which is covered with the blood of the victim, but as the raincoat is commonly sold over all over town and no identification marks are visible, this is another dead-end.
The washed out cop Capra is assigned to handle the case, but with the body count rising and with no definite leads to apprehend the murderer, the FBI agent Dalton is roped in to assist. Capra and Dalton are shown to be professionally hostile,each trying to outdo the other, and soon become bitter personal rivals as well, when Capra begins an affair with the estranged wife of Dalton, Adele.
The two investigators figure out that the murdered women were all members of a sewing club circle, to which Adele is also a member, but this is unfortunately where the trial runs cold.
As a side plot, a man named Rosewall visits a strip club and picks up a dancer to spend the night with. The next morning, she winds up dead and realising his terrible situation, Rosewall makes a frantic escape. However, the police nab him and seize the suitcase he has been carrying, which is found full of knives. The man's activities are suspicious enough for the police to pronounce him as the notorious 'Rain Killer', and even when a witness to  a victim's murder fails to recognise Rosewall definitely, the police do not consider it a serious setback, and thus all the murder cases are closed.
But as can be expected, a few minutes later into the film, we witness a man wearing the attire of the 'Rain Killer' enters Adele's apartment, and he reveals himself to be Dalton, her husband. When he expresses jealousy over her relationship with Capra, she is dismissive of him. Then in a fit of rage, Dalton smothers her with a pillow and stabs her multiple times.
Towards the end of the movie, an grief-stricken Capra takes Dalton to Adele's workshop( where she builds her sculptures) and Dalton informs him that he has killed all the women, for some obscure motive, which the movie does not attempt to elaborate on. Then Capra shoots Dalton dead, and leaves the place.

The film starts off with interestingly enough and shows potential to develop into a gripping thriller, adding a bit of suspense here and there; but overall, the slow pacing and the disjoint storyline involving numerous sub-plots, along with a ridiculous ending, hamper a story well-written and tolerably well acted.


Update- In August 2015,the movie was released on DVD by Scorpion Releasing (on special license from Califilms, the minor studio founded by Roger Corman which initially distributed the movie) and also had a limited Blu-Ray release by Kino Lorber Films. The picture quality of the release (I only saw the DVD version) is excellent, the images are crisp and bright and fully reveal the glaring blues and reds used during shooting both on the rain soaked streets as well as inside the apartments, which imbue the movie with a niorish feel. It is a marked improvement over the vhs and laserdisc releases where the picture tended to be dark and washed out and thus did not truly bring out the intended atmosphere. However, the sound quality leaves much to wish about, as I had to turn up the volume control several notches up in order to hear the dialogues and background score. There are no subtitles made available, however the extras include a theatrical trailer and 'behind the scenes' trivia segment on the filming aspects. However, keeping in mind the rarity of the movie, I would recommend any serious collector of obscurities to just grab a copy.