Whisper Kill (TV Movie 1988) Poster

(1988 TV Movie)

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6/10
Whispers in my ear
kapelusznik183 March 2015
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** Pretty good made for TV serial murder mystery involving blond bombshell newspaper editor of the fledging "Faircrest Folcon" Liz Bartlett played by Loni Anderson, the then wife of the 1970's & 1980's mustachioed macho-man Burt Reynolds, who's at odds with her partner on the paper Jerry Caper who after getting a threatening phone-call is found stabbed to death. It's Jerry's good friend who's looking for a job at the paper Dan Walker played by star of the TV show "Jake and the Fatman", he's Jake, Joe Penny who takes it upon himself to find his late friend's killer. It's later after a number of other like-wise murders that Walker starts to feel that the beautiful but unstable Liz had something to do with them. That's by him digging into her past and finding out, by threatening to beat the hell out him, from her shrink or psychiatrist Dr. John Oxford, Jeremy Slate, that as a young girl she was institutionalized after her dad went off his rocker and killed himself! There's also the suspicion that poppa was at the time molesting the poor and helpless little Liz.

It's Walker who on his own without Liz's knowledge interviews her mom self-help columnist Winifred "Ask Winnie" Rogers played by June Lockhart, who played little Timmy's mom Ruth Martin the the TV series "Lassie, and it becomes apparent to him that Liz comes from a dysfunctional family that may well have screwed up her head and possibly turned her into a serial killer when she reached adulthood! Liz for her part doesn't help her own cause in that the people who are murdered in the movie seem to have some kind of strange connection with her that isn't exactly friendly!

****SPOILERS**** Shocking ending when Walker walks right into a trap when he's about to find out who the killer is and he's suddenly attacked from behind! And low and behold it's the local police chief Block, whom he doesn't get along with too well, who save his a** from being sliced up by blasting his attacker. It takes a while to figure out who the killer is but due to process of elimination, and when the smoke that fogged up the screen cleared, it wasn't that hard to do. Loni Anderson was as, even at age 43, beautiful as ever but the only complaint I have with her was that she didn't show enough skin to titillate the males in the audience. That were all just dying to see her in the buff or at least with only her having a very revealing or see through bra as well as panties on!
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4/10
A rather dull precursor
Leofwine_draca5 July 2015
WHISPERKILL is a very early entry in the run of psycho thrillers that emerged in cinemas following the likes of FATAL ATTRACTION and (in particular) BASIC INSTINCT. Such films usually followed a cop (or pair of cops) as they investigated various psycho murders and find themselves getting too close to the suspect. This time around, blonde TV starlet Loni Anderson plays a reporter who's shocked when one of her rivals is bumped off by a vicious killer. Investigative reporter Joe Penny turns up to check things out and soon finds himself falling for her, although he becomes disturbed when he checks out his new love's background...

The thriller aspects of WHISPERKILL are handled well on a TV movie level, so it's a shame that this film instead chooses to be a cheap and cheesy love story for the most part, complete with cheesy songs on the soundtrack. Anderson and Penny do possess chemistry as the leads, but the leaden plotting makes this hard to sit through in places, although it picks up for the killer unveiling at the climax. It's hardly the stuff of greatness, though.
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I Liked it..
neilgalanter13 September 2002
Well the other person who left a comment said it was very easy to figure out who had done it from the very start ( even with his limited IQ, he said about himself)...Well I guess I am not very good with summing up plots or figuring things out, because honestly I had no idea who the killer was until the end, and I was really in suspense. This was obviously a made for TV movie, but I thought it was enjoyable and I feel bad that another user would automatically assume that everyone will know from the "get-go": "whodunnit?".... NG
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"People Like Us Don't Dance!"...
azathothpwiggins7 October 2021
Loni Anderson plays reporter Liz Bartlett in WHISPERKILL (aka: A WHISPER KILLS). Liz is stalked by phone by a whispering maniac who has just murdered her boss. Liz joins forces with a fellow reporter (Joe Penny) to solve the mystery. Not surprisingly, romance blooms.

Meanwhile, the whispering phone calls continue, and more murders follow.

WHISPERKILL is an above average made-for-TV thriller with some decent twists in its plot. Those who only know Ms. Anderson from her days on WKRP IN CINCINATTI will be happy to see her stretch her dramatic muscles...
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Boring thriller laced with fake sexual interludes
Mac-5931 March 2001
I watched this knowing who the killer was throughout the whole film. I suppose the director was counting on distracting us with Joe Penny and Loni Anderson's sexual chemistry.

Something went really wrong in the lab. I've seen canines in better heat than this. It's hurtful and insulting to assume that we as viewers wouldn't have more intellegence to figure out who did what and when. All the clues are presented to us in an orderly fashion and even my limited IQ was able to pentrate this nefarious plot which was really no more than a low brow version of a Poirot story. I won't disclose the killer..I don't have to. Watch the film for a minute and you'll know. I also know that the person it is, is in no way the person it possibly could be. The dialogue is bad, the acting mediocre, lighting is barf and the script is hurl. I watched it purely for scum intertainment. It barely suceeded as that. It's not that I detest this film, I just hate the fact that it stole an hour and a half of my life without a chill or polt intrigue to show for it. I like bad movies and I don't need SFT3000 or whatever it's called to watch it. But I require an allegiance either way, and Whisper has nothing. Whisperkill is the Switzerland of bad movies. It won't be bad and definately not good.

And after all Joe Penny is Jake, and you gotta love the guy.
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