Posted on 01/21/2006 11:56:21 AM PST by Dane
Canada greets 'Karla' with outrage By ANNE NEVILLE NEWS STAFF REPORTER 1/21/2006
Laura Prepon has the title role in "Karla," a film that will open in the Buffalo area later this year.
Karla Homolka served 12 years in prison and was released last summer amid a storm of public opposition.
For Western New Yorkers who remember the early 1990s Ontario sex slayings by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, the movie "Karla" may shed light on the psyche of an unlikely and vicious killer.
But Michael Sellers, the film's Los Angeles-based producer and writer, is finding that people in Ontario are so outraged by Karla Homolka that they have condemned the film without seeing it.
In a telephone interview from Toronto before "Karla" opened Friday in 82 theaters across Canada, Sellers said, "What's happening up here is that a lot of people are just fixating on the part that comes from her point of view, and it just makes them crazy, because they hate her so much."
The movie is not being shown in St. Catharines, where Homolka and Bernardo abducted, raped, tortured and killed Leslie Mahaffy, 14, in 1991, and Kristen French, 15, in 1992. The pair also killed Homolka's younger sister by drugging her to rape her in 1990.
The film, which stars Laura Prepon, who currently plays Donna on "That '70s Show," and Misha Collins, is expected to open later this year in Buffalo, which close but emotionally more distant" from the case.
Sellers said he decided to make "Karla" after the success of the film "Monster," the true story of serial killer Eileen Wuornos, for which Charlize Theron won a Best Actress Oscar.
"In all this controversy up here, and criticism, they talk about (us) being opportunistic, and yeah, I'm an independent producer, and I look at "Monster' and think, "Wow, I could make that movie for the kind of budget that I have to work with, and yet the film could be good and go far.' " said Sellers.
"Karla" is based largely on transcripts of an in-depth psychiatric interview Homolka underwent eight years into her prison term. Although Homolka was denied parole at that time, she was freed in July after serving 12 years. Homolka got the relatively light sentence in exchange for testifying against Bernardo, but prosecutors said that if videotapes the killers made of the attacks had been found earlier, Homolka would have been charged with murder.
Sellers said that using the transcripts of the psychiatric interview "gives us the ability for Karla to narrate, which this kind of a story needs . . . but unlike "Monster,' she wasn't allowed to narrate unimpeded, she is challenged by the psychiatrist. Karla is such a manipulator, and if you're going to depict her accurately, she'll be manipulating the audience."
Sellers said Christal Films, the Montreal-based film distributor, "thought about opening it in Buffalo now, but they didn't because it's just so close to St. Catharines it would be like putting it there. We wanted to avoid that, so it'll be later after the dust has settled."
The outcry against the film was so strong that Montreal's annual World Film Festival withdrew its invitation after pressure from the festival's sponsors. Sellers said "Karla" will be shown at film festivals in Santa Barbara and Cleveland, "and one way or another it'll be out in the U.S. later in the spring."
Ingrid Hamilton, an independent Toronto publicist who is working with Christal Films, said 45 people attended the 1:30 p.m. screening Friday at one downtown Toronto theater, "and that is a lot on a weekday. So I think that's a sign that it will probably bring people out."
The film was panned by the Toronto Globe and Mail reviewer.
Yet, Liberal Canada screams when their ox is gored.
I love seeing Liberal duplicity exposed.
Waiting for the "humanizing" film about the Beltway murderers. Wonder how that will play out.
I know people have diarrhea...does that mean they have to make a movie about it? I know people pick their noses and eat it...does that mean they have to make a movie about it? ENOUGH...We don't need to know the INSIGHT into these monsters. It just humanizes them.
Wanna hear something really scary?
Karla was released last July, and is now free walking the streets somewhere.
Every competent and professional analysis of Karla Homolks basically said the same thing, i.e. that she was another extreme case of psychological conditioning and control like the case of Patty Hearst and the appeals judge threw out the 810.2 conditions for good reason. The doctors who first got their hands on Karla after she broke up with Bernardo said she was the worst case of abuse they had ever seen and compared her to a death-camp survivor. The Canadian media is every bit as bad as their government; caveat emptor.
Strikes me that Canadians by and large have about the same morals as Paul and Karla. I'm surprised she hasn't been elected to public office.
Why anyone would want to go and see this movie is beyond me.
You hit the nail on the head, Hildy. (And I love your tagline, too.)
Hey, watch that Hate Speech!!!
</sarc>
"Why anyone would want to go and see this movie is beyond me."
I can barely stand reading about her in the news.
She needs to be hunted down. And be given the same treatment that she dished out to her victims.
LOL! You hit it square and center.
Incredible
Unbelievably Incredible
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