Profile of a Killer (2012)

Serial killer movies are usually quite predictable. They start out with a murder, some detectives get on the case and pretty soon after another body is found and a pattern is discovered. The police and the killer will play a game of cat and mouse trying to outwit each other all ending in a showdown. Profile of a Killer also is a movie about a serial killer, but in this case it twists that well-known storyline into something slightly different. The question is if that results in something worth watching?

Saul Aitken (Gabriele Angieri) is called in when several bodies are found in different places all near highway 61. The detectives on the case are trying to do the best they can, but they need to know more about the person responsible and this is where Saul comes in. He is a retired FBI profiler, who is asked to look at a case by someone he knows. He agrees and starts looking at the evidence, but it doesn’t take long before he becomes the target of the killer. The twist is that the killer does not want to kill him immediately, instead wanting him to profile him. This results in a psychological thriller with the experienced profiler going head to head with a young killer.

The movie has been written and directed by Caspian Tredwell-Owen who wrote the script for Michael Bay’s The Island. Despite this being a low-budget movie it looks good. The corpses (or what remains of them) look convincingly gruesome and the setting, cold and bleak Minnesota scenery, really adds to the story. That story is quite captivating, especially when it comes to the scenes between the profiler and the killer. Gabriele Angieri plays the experienced Saul very well, but to me it really was Joey Pollari who convinced in his role of an unpredictable young man. There were moments where he reminded me of Anthony Perkins in Psycho. The story has some tricks up its sleeves resulting in unpredictable twists. As Saul is held the police is doing everything to find him and the killer. These to me were the less interesting parts and one of the relationships didn’t become clear enough to me resulting in less emotional impact when something unexpected happens. Profile of a Killer was an interesting watch it made me wonder what Tredwell-Owen would be able to do with a bigger budget.