(2006) Black Dahlia

The Polish-born character actor-cum-slasher film director Ulli Lommel helms the 2006 direct-to-video horror picture The Black Dahlia, not to be confused with Brian De Palma's A-budget feature The Black Dahlia from the same year. Whereas the De Palma film dramatizes the infamous 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short and the investigation that ensued, Lommel's picture instead concerns a series of contemporary L.A.-area homicides patterned after the 1947 slaying. It stars Elissa Dowling, Sutton Christopher, and Christian Behm, and tells of a "copycat" serial killer who reads of the 1947 murder and goes on a rampage in modern-day Los Angeles, producing a series of partially mutilated female bodies in dumpsters in emulation of Elizabeth Short's murderer. A rookie cop and his partner happen upon several of the corpses and must track down the psychopath in order to end his menace forever.

Directed By: Ulli Lommel 

 

(2006) The Black Dahlia

A tale of obsession, love, corruption, greed and depravity that revolves around a true story of the brutal murder of a fledgling Hollywood starlet that shocked and fascinated the nation in 1947 and remains unsolved today. Two ex-pugilist cops, Lee Blanchard and Bucky Bleichert, are called to investigate the homicide of ambitious silver-screen B-lister Betty Ann Short -- aka 'The Black Dahlia' -- an attack so grisly that images of the killing were kept from the public. While Blanchard's growing preoccupation with the sensational murder threatens his marriage to Kay, his partner, Bleichert, finds himself attracted to the enigmatic Madeleine Linscott, the daughter of one of the city's most prominent families -- who just happens to have an unsavory connection to the murder victim.

Directed By: Brian DePalma