Wanda is not the biggest fan of men, but in defense of my gender the vast majority of us are quite up to the level of abusive violence that is de rigeur for the fellas in this movie. In a universe where lines like "I need you to wipe my ass, woman" seem to be commonplace sentiments, it's no wonder she's ended up both a lesbian and a serial killer.

Pearle is slightly more grounded. I have to stress the world slightly because although she acts squeamish moving among the trail of dead left by her lover, she isn't necessarily under the impression that it's wrong.

In the characters of Wanda and Pearle there are parallels with the real-world story of Aileen Wournos. This movie, made in the early- to mid-nineties, no doubt was inspired by the details of Wournos' exploits that were cropping up in the tabloid press anxioius to label her "the first female serial killer" (though Elizabeth Bathory actually beat her to the claim on the title by a few centuries), and because of this, I kept thinking of Nick Broomfield's documentary on Wournos from a few years ago "The Selling of a Serial Killer". That's too bad, because the documentary is the better film.

The makeup effects, by T. Michael Conway, are well rendered (for what is very obviously a zero-budget movie), but they're working in spite of some awful camerwork by the co-director Mark Steven Bosko, a cast whose only common trait are some uneven performances, and a script that brings up some good situations, and then abandons them.

When we first meet Pearle she's being taunted, construction-site style, by a pair of lunkheads whom she responds to by flashing them and then laughing maniacally. Then she proceeds to slice up some carrots in properly symbolic fashion and we meet Wanda. Wanda is picking up some money panhandling, when she's picked up by Pearle and we learn that the two of them are keeping a cozy little house.

A cozy little house that happens to house a murderess and her muse, but you can't say there's a shortage of love between them. Things get complicated when Pearle decides she wants to have a baby. And Wanda, who's turning tricks to put spending money in their pockets, begins to think about taking her work home with her.

And yet their love survives. The film is short (65 minuntes) and its brevity does not work in its favor. One late sequence, when Wanda brings the wrong trick home, is something that could feed a whole movie in and of itself if writer and co-director Wayne Alan Harold bothered to explore any of his concepts beyond a superficial level. As it is in the movie this scene shifts gears a little too quickly and moves in for the quick gore shot.

The extras on the disc are as light as the screenplay. A seven minute making of film that succeeds mainly in making the cast seem almost like the touring company of Waiting for Guffman, a pair of trailers that highlights each of the two leads, and a short film shot by the directors, "12 AM" that is slightly better than the feature. Slightly.

There are also trailers for a number of other releases from Tempe Entertainment, all of which look better than this movie. Including a trailer for "Townies", also written and directed by Wayne Alan Harold, that seems like it might be pretty fun.