Florida, Winter, 1978. An unsettling man prowls the streets, spying on women, making lewd passes at them. He becomes fixated on a group of sorority girls and starts spying on them through their windows. Who will survive the night? This really happened. And much more. This is the story of one of the most legendary, infamous serial killers in the history of the United States.

You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you can tell something bad is going to happen but you don’t quite know what? That’s the feeling this film conjures at times. While obviously shot with a very low budget, The Black Mass is still surprisingly effective. One of the smartest things that first-time feature film director DeVanny Pinn (an actress who has appeared in many low budget horror and action films over the years) does is to frequently put us in the shoes of the creepy stalker, giving us a POV of his seedy spying and eventual more gruesome acts. It gives the film a more visceral feel to what might otherwise have been a fairly pedestrian effort while also hiding some of the low budget trappings of the project. Additionally, given it takes place in 1978, The Black Mass does a pretty decent job of building out the costume and production design of the time period, particularly for its budget. This film seems custom built for a cult audience, being too much of a slow burn for gorehounds (although it does eventually get to some very grisly killings with pretty decently done special effects) and possibly too salacious and exploitive for the arthouse crowd. Still, while the acting is a bit hit or miss and the lighting at times has that overexposed, “too clean” DV look to it, The Black Mass is a cut above the average direct-to-video thriller.

The video presentation is very clean with a crisp digital video look to it that shows little in the way of egregious transfer issues. The audio is generally quite good as well although there are a few times where the dialogue sounds a bit muffled. Again given the budget involved, I would guess this is probably an issue with the source rather than anything to do with the mastering of the disc. Extras are almost non-existent with just a trailer and a slideshow.

Overall, this is actually a pretty solid low budget serial killer film with some effective moments and a generally well-produced disc, albeit with a distinct lack of meaningful extras. It’s worth checking out for folks who like a trip into the darker side of reality.