“Hi Judy, this is Richard. I’m in your apartment, and I’m going to kill you.”
D.W. Moffett is a serial killer with a heart of gold. Staci Keanan is a precocious high school girl who learns that not all love is unrequited. Put them together and you’ve got … (cue James Brown’s “I Feel Good” or maybe that “You’re the Best Around” song from Rocky IV). Anyway … Lisa. No, it’s not a wacky Odd Couple-scenario sitcom.
It’s more like a story about a serial killer. He’s a romantic at heart. They call him the Candlelight Killer because he rapes and murders his victims, attractive women, by candlelight. He tells his victims he loves them before he kills them. I guess you’ve got to have a hook. Like the Wet Bandits. Remember them? They rob a joint and then turn the water on so that … uh, the owners have wet shoes when they come home to find everything gone?
Staci Keanan, who sharp-eyed viewers will remember from My Two Dads and Step by Step, plays Lisa like a normal, if mischievous teenager. While out on a rice run for her mom (Cheryl Ladd), she collides with Moffett and is immediately infatuated with him. He likes her too. It’s too bad she’s not his type. I guess he’ll have to wait a few years.
Anyway, Lisa is in lurve. Poor kid. She’s kind of a stalker, so she writes down his license plate number so she can track him. She wants to go out with boys, but her mother lays down the law. Lisa can’t start dating until she’s 16. Considering the scenario she’s about to become part of, her mother makes a lot of sense. I have a daughter. When I first watched the movie (it usually showed up late nights on HBO) back in 1992, I thought Cheryl was being unfair. Now, I totally get it.
Lisa tells her friend, Wendy (a very funny Tanya Fenmore), about this “beautiful man” (her words) she met. They manage to get his phone number and she calls him anonymously, trying to sound older (basically like her mom) and sexy. She’s having a lot of fun with this until the bodies start piling up, and being young and in love, she has no idea who this guy truly is, let alone that he’s a serial rapist/killer. She almost gets her mother killed.
This is like your worst nightmare as both a woman and a parent, and in the wrong hands, the material could easily turn sleazy. Gary Sherman directs the movie with extraordinary restraint and sympathy for Lisa and her mother. He’s known for the occasional horror movie such as Dead and Buried and Poltergeist III (RIP Tom Skerritt), but also exploitation fare such as Vice Squad and the film adaptation of Wanted: Dead or Alive starring Rutger Hauer and Gene Simmons.
D.W. Moffett gets the short straw in characterization, playing a charming heavy with the thinnest of motivations, even though it is a more substantial role than he’s used to playing. I mainly remembered him as Rachel Ticotin’s jackass partner in Falling Down. He also appeared in Stealing Beauty and Traffic. It’s nice to see Cheryl Ladd playing against type as a worried single mom.
Lisa barely got a release, but it did play in heavy rotation on HBO. Strange that in today’s climate, a movie like Lisa would receive multiple accolades and do incredible business when we compare it to movies like Obsession. Keanan saved her money, retired from acting and became a successful lawyer, currently practicing in California. Smart kid!
October 23, 2026
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