Billed as a comedy, and about as funny as cancer, "Love Stalker," shot in St. Louis with local actors and technicians, is not very comic. Pete, our protagonist, is occasionally funny, but mostly he brings laughs for his unrealistic stupidity. It's part of the St. Louis International Film Festival, and will screen at 9 p.m. on Nov. 15 at Webster University.
Written and directed by Matt Glasson and Bowls MacLean, with Glasson mucking up the screen as Pete, it's the tale of a 30-year-old adolescent whose approach to strange women is about as subtle as a brick. Of course, his technique does not cost him a lot of money, nor a lot of time, which provides him the opportunity to be rejected by dozens — maybe even hundreds — on any given night and still get home in time for plenty of sleep.
Given the fact that he's been part of today's sleep-around society, it's rather amazing that in 15 years of chasing bed-mates, his success ratio is below an average of five women a year. Not a week, or a month, but a year. It's no surprise, watching Pete engage in the sort of seduction that I saw professional football players practicing in the'60s.
Player to girl at bar: "Hello."
Girl: "Hello."
Player: "Do you like strawberries?"
Girl: "Yes."
Player: "Good. Let's go to bed."
Pete's also so stupid he thinks that when he's scored with 75 women, he will achieve some sort of epiphany.
We see some bedroom antics that are amusing, but which never will be mistaken for good pornography, and some conversation that would have to be twice as good to reach banality. Finally, Pete meets Stephanie (Rachel) and decides he's in love. Stephanie discovers what a jerk Pete is but it takes a while longer before she discovers how jerkishly he can behave.
Spotting St. Louis locations and reminiscing about some of the bars that are visited makes the time pass faster.
Love Stalker will be shown at 9 p.m. Nov. 15 in the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus
— Joe