Hollywood 90028

Christine Hornisher’s film set in 1970’s haunts you, not with ghosts, but with characters lost to the world. They carry the weight of dreams they know are probably out of their grasp. The cameraman is a killer addicted underground erotic film. The girl was once pushed into sleazy films to pay the rent: women are killed and women who are used up as sexual objects, in this city women have no voice. Hornisher renders the seedy side of this world with an unflinching eye, she moves the film camera close to the sleaze, forcing the viewer right into the centre of the ugliness where girls are filmed under the bright camera lights, by a man that kills them in his spare time. A nostalgic soundtrack plays in the background, its tone letting us know that this film is advancing to a place where darkness will consume the two main characters.

Using a set of old family photographs Hornisher appears to be telling a story about a child psychopath. Psychopathy is a complex mixture of biological and environmental inputs. Adult psychopaths reveal themselves through their words, an icy lack of empathy, shallow responses, pathological lying, a high level of manipulation and a strong lack of fear. Some are adept at dipping into their box of masks: slip a mask on and they can fool most people for a short while. Some thrive in occupations that require a lack of fear. This is a character capble of being superficially charming for a short time and luring women close. They don't get to see the real person as they die before that can happen.

There is a superb scene where the cameraman killer clicks pictures of a tiger in a zoo: pacing and trapped. In a way he’s watching himself, he’s creating his own end, prison or death, with his actions. The city is portrayed as a character with many faces seen through a lonely lens. The killer tells us that you see the truth through the camera lens and we know this is a lie. Camera's often lie and people often smile on them because it's socially expected. It's interesting that he dislikes his own photograph being taken by anyone. He wants a serious job, the type a magazine offering serious subjects could offer, but he cannot stop his killing addiction.

In this city we see the pornographic magazine shops, live nude shows, live nude girls, men looking for thrills, girls selling their skin to pay bills. The two characters step through the corporate sector with glossy steel-glass skyscrapers that emphasise the vulnerability of the people beneath their towering bulk. She tells the killer about the fact that she came to the city from a small town, envisioning it as a place of dreams, a place where she can find something incredible. The city is a place that people in lost small towns look up to, the see it as inspiration but the reality is very different. But she tells him what she ended up doing was making skin flicks. The only emotion he shows for this one girl, they make a connection but she's not willing to give him everything he desires.

We do see symptoms of psychosis during one killing, symptoms of dissociation. When

committing one murder his mind goes back to his childhood for a second, he is back there in memory, while he kills. This is a film of loneliness, where people search for connection even for one night. And sometimes that's what we do as humans, search for connection, the problem is in this case the path of companionship leads to a killer.

They move through old streets with houses full of character being flattened to make way for generic flats. We see the Hollywood sign, a symbol of ambition and ruin alike. How many dreams died beneath this sign in this city? Hornisher appears to be asking. Despite her filming a world where women have no power, it is a woman filming and her talent shines here .