‘New York has a new problem’
The Covid Killer is a 2021 satirical (?) horror film about the titular serial killer who is terrorising the inhabitants of New York City.
Produced, directed, photographed and edited by Jeff Knite from a screenplay co-written with Mike Benz, Johnny Careccia and Paugh Shadow.
Update: In 2024, writer-director Jeff Knite filmed The Omicron Killer, a sequel to this movie about a copycat serial killer; it features genre regulars Bai Ling, Felissa Rose and Lynn Lowry.
Review:
The Covid Killer begins chillingly with real-life footage of Donald Trump in 2020 at a press conference surrounded by worried-looking health officials as he predicts that the pandemic “washes through” by “July, August, something like that”. Further clips show Trump’s support for the untested hydroxychloroquine drug and injections of disinfections. Obviously, Trump and like-minded politicians who hoped that COVID-19 was merely an economic inconvenience were, in many cases, fatally wrong.
We initially held off posting The Covid Killer because it seemed tasteless and even more exploitative than many of the really lowbrow movies on this website. However, in the end, with a vast array of would-be socially conscious lockdown films cashing in on the pandemic, it seemed pointless to ignore this addition to the cycle even if it’s so knowingly trashy. At least there are multiple scenes filmed in the relatively empty streets of New York so it’s not as claustrophobic as many of the other lockdown movies.
The Covid Killer‘s publicity revels in its serial killer subject matter and yet for the first half-hour, the killer hardly appears. The carnage isn’t shown. Mike Benz plays the unlikeliest cop ever who has a collection of over 200 trainers which is apparently deemed to be impressive. It has a down ‘n’ dirty hip hop soundtrack, plus some horror-themed synths but also includes Chopin’s ‘Funeral March’ and other classical pieces that are just head shakingly inappropriate. It’s also awful. Embarrassingly awful. Irredeemably awful. The camerawork is beyond basic. The amateurish acting is atrocious.
It should be noted that despite its obvious awfulness filmmaker Jeff Knite has no qualms about pushing The Covid Killer to a (presumably uncomprehending) world via a swathe of unsubtle teasers and trailers so his full-on marketing will perhaps create a certain bizarre buzz.
Meanwhile, the only scary thing here is the continuing true-life COVID-19 pandemic and the clips of Trump that the film clearly uses to show how utterly ignorant he was when he was ostensibly in charge of the US reaction to it. That’s not our own assessment, the clips used here speak for themselves and COVID-19 is, of course, still with us despite the former President’s smirkingly confident predictions it would wash through by mid-2020.
Other reviews:
Release:
The Covid Killer was released On-Demand on November 2nd 2021.
Technical details:
83 minutes – the film runs 76 minutes and the rest is ‘hilarious’ outtakes
Teaser:
Trailer 1:
Trailer 2:
Our rating is actually half a star but Google doesn’t recognise less than a star.
