The Skokie Ripper has picked up killing women and stealing their cars along the Midwest and the film centers on various characters that he will affect in one way or another as their lives intersect in this interesting(I thought)character study.The thoughtful, existential screenplay was written by director Cardone and deals with topics such as regret, loneliness, fate, and death.Outside Ozona might make an interesting companion piece with Cardone's desert Midwestern vampire tale, The Forsaken.The film is filled with colorful, often profane dialogue. Could be Cardone's most ambitious script as a writer and he rarely has had such a competent cast to work with which included Robert Forster(as a gentle truck driver), Kevin Pollack(as an out-of-work circus clown), Penelope Ann Miller(..cast against type as Pollack's dim-bulb stripper-girlfriend), Taj Mahal(as a disgruntled and troubled radio jock whose voice is an important part of the film), Meat Loaf(as Mahal's radio manager who can not stop his employee from letting off steam on the air in a revolt against having to cover two shifts because another didn't come into work), Sherilyn Fenn(in a minor role as a possible victim of an unlikely serial killer), Swoosie Kurtz(as a diner waitress)& David Paymer(as a bible-quoting, fanatical sociopath murdering females on the road in his twisted, warped view of working for the Lord). Kateri Walker is a beautiful Navajo woman Forster befriends as she plans to take her dying mother, Effie(Lois Red Elk)to New Mexico before her death. The film basically follows the characters as they converse about their lives and what possibilities have passed them by.
Review of Outside Ozona
