Rating: 
Summary: Lock Your Doors At Night!
Review: This film is the perfect example of what happens when you don't lock your doors at night! Your home gets invaded and, you may even get killed!But that's not the point of this film (not really, anyway). This is a stark, cold, real film that is based on a true story that happened in 1959 in Kansas. Based on Truman Capote's 1965 novel, it became an excellent film in 1967 - starring Robert Blake and Scott Wilson, as low-life killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickok. The film is about two men who hatch a plan in finding a safe which held a supposed fortune inside. In a rural town of Holcomb, Kansas, the Clutter family, the victims of this horrible tale, are murdered in cold blood all for a measly $40 - $10 for each life! There was Herbert Clutter (John McLiam), the father; Bonnie Clutter (Ruth Storey), the mentally unbalanced mother; Nancy Clutter (Brenda Currin), their 16-year-old daughter; and Kenyon Clutter (Paul Hough), their young son. All were killed at night for what? Nothing! A well-to-do family killed in a senseless act of violence. But the film has a shocking twist! In some moments, we actually (or at least I did) come to like these characters! No, not for what they did, but for their dreams - like Perry's "Captain Cortes" bit or his dream about playing in Las Vegas. I even sympathized for him when he talked about his father pointing the shotgun at him and saying, "look at me, boy, 'cause this is the last face you'll ever get to see!" and they pulls the trigger without any bullets inside. (It was revealed that his father was the reason for Perry's explosive tempers, which also caused Perry to single-handedly kill the Clutters.) Even Dick can't believe it! And you're sure he had something to do with the murders, but it was all Perry's doing! Dick is slime, but you have to feel sorry in a way. They just wanted the money. Then, in a surprise move by both author Capote and Richard Brooks, who directed and wrote the screenplay, showed a new side of these "villains." By showing their cross-country adventure in Mexico and back to the States, their adventure with a kid, a sick old man, and bottles (you'll just have to watch this film to see what I mean)! But it is also not for the squeamish! I admit to crying during the murder scenes. Truly is heartbreaking. It balances between a drama, a film noir, and even a buddy/road film. Eventually, Dick and Perry are caught and sentenced to be hanged! There are many familiar and very good character actors here: John Forsythe plays Alvin Dewey, the man in charge of finding the killers; Jeff Corey is Dick's father, Mr. Hickok; Will Geer is the prosecuting attorney who convicts them; and Paul Stewart (Raymond from CITIZEN KANE) as Jenson the reporter. IN COLD BLOOD was nominated for 5 Academy Awards including: Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay - Richard Brooks; Best Cinematography - Conrad Hall; Best Film Editing; and Best Score - Quincy Jones. A sad, but thoughtful film that is as compelling and surreal as the book itself!
Rating: 
Summary: Blueprint for mass murder
Review: This gritty original screen adaptation of author Truman Capote's true-crime bestseller recreates the 1959 mass killing of a family of four in the nation's Bible Belt, in Holcomb, Kan. (pop. 270). Director Richard Brooks takes us into the Clutter home and the complex characters who were two robbers rummaging frantically for a stach that doesn't exist and, in incremental degrees, to the shotgun slayings of the farm couple and their two teen-age children. But the focus here is not on the killings themselves but more on the pathology set off in Perry Smith and Richard Hickock when they concede the fortune they hoped to steal isn't there. On that count, art might not necessarily imitate reality. As Perry Smith, Robert Blake (in what may well be the best work of his carrer) plays his character as something as a reluctant follower to Scott Wilson's egging on as Dick Hickock. In reality, according to investigators of the real crime and who are still alive, the real Perry Smith was perceived as a social psychopath who didn't need any egging on to commit murder. As Smith heads for the gallows in the film's closing scene, we get the sense of some remorse from the man but, actually, the real character had to be carried to the hangman's noose after he refused to walk the stairs in a final act of defiance. Nonetheless, the film, shot entirely in black and white that produces a near-Gothic reality, takes us into the inner workings of two merciless killers who, we discover, we don't necessarily want to know more of. In the end, we don't get the hoped for sense of absolution that the killers' executions promise. Nor should there be. In the final analysis, all we have are four people dead to an unspeakable act of violence and two killers who've tied their own nooses, all four 50 bucks and a dead girl's radio. Read Capote's book for background to appreciate the film's faithfulness to its subject matter. In neither is there a disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing
Review: This is a decent movie, but it just doesn't compare with the book. I was sorely disappointed after reading such an incredible book. Save your money on the movie and read the book instead! I promise you won't be disappointed
Rating:
Summary: True crime drama, way ahead of its time.
Review: This is a no frills look at how the senseless murders of an entire family originated in idea. It is not a thrill a minute movie but a blunt look into how the lives of the two killers evolved into greed and murder. You can actually see it coming but the suspense is chilling and so is the ending. This is a great true crime movie that should never be forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: Box cover gives chills after watching this one
Review: This is one of those gritty dramas that's much scarier than anything out of the standard horror genre. It grabs the viewers sympathies and toys with their emotions by portraying the two main characters as actual human beings with good and bad characteristics, even flashing back to both traumatic and endearing childhood memories. The flashback of the Blake character riding horseback with his beautiful native American mother is heartwarming and touching. Reminding any viewer of a typical childhood outing with their own mother in years gone by. In Cold Blood stays fairly true to Capote's masterpeice which is another reason for its success. To butcher up that piece of art would be sacrilegious and the director holds his own quite nicely. Much like Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, Pasolini's Italian gem: Salo 120, and Edel's Last Exit to Brooklyn; In Cold Blood captures a gritty authenticity that escapes much Hollywood fare. It stays in the viewer's gut long after it's seen. Two scenes standout and merit separate mention solely for there visceral appeal alone: one is when the father is virtually hog tied in his cold and dark basement awaiting his eventual slaughter and the other is the quiet noose hanging in the night air begging the larger question of American justice and retribution and if it's served at all when two hoods finally get their necks snapped. This is the type of film Hollywood doesn't make much of anymore and unfortunately for much of the philistine's, if it ain't Forest Gump or some sinking ship with a boyish face on deck, nobody gives a rip. Go see this one as it's movie making at its best with a pseudo film noir feel to it.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing (in more than one way)
Review: This is the best true crime movie I've ever seen. Two problems, though: the pontificating in the second half (for instance, one character asks another who the executioner is, and the answer is, "We, the people"), and the basic moral quandary over recreating a multiple murder in the same house as the crime itself. But this is a film you won't soon forget, and anyone who's ever lived in Kansas will appreciate the bleak location footage.
Rating:
Summary: An unreasonable murder
Review: This movie is about the murder of four innocent members of the Clutters family. Two psycho men, Dick and Perry, in search of a safe inside the Clutter's house, led them to coldly kill four people in order to leave "no witnesses". It was a saturday night November 15, 1959 when the murder occurred. The fact that the movie was filmed in the same house and almost all the same places where Dick and Perry traveled, make this movie very real which, personally made a great impact of credibility and a great connection with the book. The end of the movie is very sentimental because it shows how Dick and Perry suffered waiting for their end. Personally, the movie made me feel sorry about Perry before he was hanged, which the book did not. In my opinion they deserved what they got because they had no right to take no one's life. Lastly I think it was a good movie but it doesn't compare with the book, which has more details.
Rating:
Summary: Bleak and Unforgettable
Review: This terrific study in terror almost looks like a documentary. The cinematography in this film only underscores the outrage that takes place. That house out on a Kansas plain is forever indelible on anyone who views this film. Blake and Wilson explore the vile depths of what a human being will do for perverse fullfillment.
Rating:
Summary: Intense!
Review: Truly riveting. Can't leave the room while viewing this movie. I had to keep reminding myself that this horrific act really happened. I read the book 24 years ago, but first saw the movie 9 years ago. Don't bother with the TV remake, it's not worth your time.
Rating:
Summary: Good adaptation of a great book
Review: Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" was hailed as a "non-fiction novel"; Richard Brooks' film adaptation is a semi-documentary film. Brooks doesn't sensationalize, however; the blood and gore of four horrible murders is kept to a bare minimum. We hear the gunshots but we don't see the carnage, and we don't need to; the power of suggestion does it all. Brooks keeps the movie strictly on track, from the night of the murder to the discovery of the crime the next morning; the killers' flight across country and the investigation by the detectives of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation which solved the crime and brought the perpetrators to justice. The actors are all competent in their roles and there are some very good performances indeed in the supporting parts. But the outstanding performance in this film is Robert Blake as Perry Smith, and to a lesser extent, Scott Wilson as Dick Hickock. Blake's haunted expression as he says, right before his hanging, "I'd like to apologize. But who to?" makes the viewer feel all the tragedy of a wasted life. The one problem with this otherwise fine screen adaptation is that we see far too little of the Clutters. We don't get to know them as people, their lives, how they interact. They're just people who get murdered one night. In the book they became living characters, people we felt we knew. In the movie, they're almost reduced to bit players. The book is about the Clutters, who were killed by Hickock and Smith; the movie is about Hickock and Smith who murdered a family named Clutter. The book raced along with the speed of a good novel; the film moves at a slower pace, that of an investigative report. If we see too little of the Clutters, we really get inside the minds of Smith and Hickock, and it isn't very nice in there. Shooting the movie in black and white lends to the newsreel quality of the film. It's a stark, bare-bones movie, the right kind of film to depict a senseless crime that ultimately destroyed six lives.
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