Letters from a Killer

Some films acquire an unwarranted fascination through their sheer badness and this psychological thriller - the first Patrick Swayze movie to go straight to video - is a case in point. It's hard to imagine a less animated performance, even from this most inert of actors. Yet director David Carson somehow snags our interest in this chess-playing, western-reading death-row resident, as he whiles away the time between appeals by writing purple prose to four adoring women on the outside. Once he's free, however, and discovers one of his fan club is trying to frame him for more murders, the bubble bursts, unleashing unintentional laughs aplenty.