Last night my friend Tom messaged me that Morgan Freeman was giving a lecture at Millsaps in a movie. “The Ritual Killer,” now streaming on Hulu, was shot in Jackson during the time when I was still really sick, so I guess I missed a lot of information about it. The film was shot in Italy, Jackson, Clinton, and the Pearl River Reservoir. It’s a psychological thriller with Cole Hauser from Yellowstone playing a Clinton, Mississippi Homicide Detective (the Clinton Police Force may not have homicide detectives. It’s only about 20 guys.) Morgan Freeman plays a professor of African History at a small college in Clinton. There actually is a small college in Clinton, but they shot the film in Jackson at Millsaps instead.
The Ritual Killing referenced here is African shamanistic medicine, which in some instances, requires human body parts for the more powerful rituals. There was a rash of these sorts of killings in Africa a few years ago. In the film, a powerful businessman hires an African shaman to come to Clinton, Mississippi, where he lives, and conduct these rituals to make him more powerful, rituals that require the sacrifice of two children and a teenager, which is where the homicide detective comes in.
Morgan Freeman plays an anthropology professor. The first scene with him has him lecturing in the Heritage Lecture Hall in the Ford Academic Complex. With all its geometric shapes and brick patterns, the building photographs really well. One of the students in his class is Claire Azordegan, who was in the Spring Show last year. She doesn’t have any speaking lines, but she does a good job of looking like she’s studying really hard. I expected to recognize other players in the production, but most were out-of-towners. Bill Luckett as the crime scene scientist, did make me smile. Bill died two years ago, and we still haven’t anyone like him yet. Covid and other issues delayed the release of the film.
The writing credits for this film look like a house party. IMDB lists seven different writers. None of the writers are from here, which is why, most of the time, it feels like they just threw a dart at the map and chose to set the film in Clinton. Although they did a fair amount of research into African Culture, they did zero research into Southern Culture. This film could just have easily been set in Chicago or Fresno, or any city.
To write a film about voodoo killings and not even have some of it set in New Orleans is a huge missed opportunity. There are a few exterior shots toward the end that were apparently shot in Baton Rouge (there are no riverside warehouses on the Pearl River.) A film about African culture set in Mississippi is such an obvious opportunity to discuss the exchange between African and European cultures that makes up the state culture of Mississippi, but one the screenwriters completely ignore. There’s absolutely no story-driven reason to set the film in Mississippi. It’s just a place.
That being said, they photographed Jackson and Millsaps beautifully. There are a few exterior establishing shots actually done in Clinton, but nearly the entire film is shot in Jackson, including a police chase through the Lamar Life Building and a couple of really good scenes shot in Hal and Mals. I feel like the Mississippi Film Office just gave them a list of filming locations, and the director said, “Sure.” It works too. The film feels very much like it’s set in Middle America, which I suppose was the objective, but they left an awful lot on the table.
Most of the scenes shot in Italy could have been shot anywhere too. The writers don’t seem to have any sense of place at all. It’s like they wanted an excuse to spend two months filming in Rome, so they wrote it into the movie. I know a guy who actually did that. The movie is 20 Million Miles to Earth. Check it out sometime. Shooting it in Rome gave Ray Harryhausen a pretty great honeymoon.
Morgan Freeman’s role is very similar to the character he played in Se7en and Kiss the Girls. I”m sure Cole Hauser can be a fine actor, but in scenes with Morgan Freeman, you can tell he’s scared to death and comes off as really wooden and not committed to the scene at all.
As a psychological thriller, I’m pretty pleased with the film. It has a nice, even tension to it, and you end up feeling pretty strongly about the leads finding a resolution to the action. It’s kind of like dinner at a Chinese restaurant, though; you’re hungry an hour later. If you’re from Jackson or at all involved with Millsaps, it’s worth watching just so you can pick out locations you know.
With New Orleans so nearby, nobody has ever done a movie about Voodoo in Mississippi before. We have it, though. There was a time when one of our store managers fired an unreliable delivery guy, and there were chicken bones left in the doorway to the building for a month.
Nearly everybody has Hulu these days. It’s worth a night at home watching movies.
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