Crime Time (1996) – Georges Sluzier.

A psychopath (Pete Postlethwaite) stalks the shadowy London streets, not content killing young women, he sinisterly harvests an eye. Once the crimes are luridly recreated for TVs tabloid-y Crime Time, broody, method actor (Stephen Baldwin) becomes increasingly obsessed with performing the maniacal killer, until grisly fact and fiction become fatefully intertwined. Not surprisingly, gifted director Sluzier brings much style, and an additional frisson of palpable darkness to his suspenseful serial killer shocker. Crime Time's rigorous watchability is maintained by credible performances, icon Karen Black is always a big treat, young lovers Stephen Baldwin and Sadie Frost are lively, proving convincing, with Postlethwaite's proletariat psycho's blandly anonymous exterior belying a truly monstrous modus operandi. Seen today, Crime Time remains a proper wee gem of a nasty-edged thriller, seemingly neglected, perhaps unfairly tarred by Baldwin's future slump into B-movie banality, the film-making/photography/text remain absolutely sound, and the eerie sequences revealing Postlethwaite and wife Geraldine Chaplin's queasy domesticity are really rather special indeed! Atmospheric, creepy, and coldly gripping, the creator of indelible creep-fest 'The Vanishing', once again delivers the suspenseful goods with his powerhouse 90s sleeper Crime Time.