Recently, the local media chatter over the "North Side Strangler" reminded a one-time Milwaukee filmmaker that he'd already produced this picture. Shortly before leaving town in 1999, Miko Montgomery shot a short movie about an African-American serial killer preying on victims at the fringe of mainstream society.
Mass Murder, Milwaukee Style wasn't a slasher flick, but a satire of the unhealthy state of race relations in our city. Coming at the close of a decade that began with Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killing was a handy motif with which to bludgeon a city that often prided itself on greatness while overlooking the precarious underclass abyss on which it's perched.
Filmed in black and white, MM, MS follows a heavy set killer (played by Tony Mozli-Warren) as he pads around his apartment, listening to media accounts of his crimes. The racist preconceptions of the pundits are blaringly obvious.
"What's going on in Milwaukee right now is a mirror image of what I satirized 10 years ago," Montgomery says. "The coincidences are startling. Nothing much has changed in Milwaukee. It's as mad as ever." He adds that below the particular local conditions that MM, MS protested, the theme is madness. "Is anything more mad than modern society?" he asks. "The only reason we believe the world is sane is because the mass media keeps insisting that it is via news and so-called entertainment."
Since leaving for Las Vegas, Montgomery has worked as a photographer, videographer, musician and screenwriter. Currently he operates MovieBrat Poster Shop. "I call it a head shop for people strung out on culture," he says.
Check him out as moviebratpostershop.com.
Mass Murder, Milwaukee Style can be seen on YouTube.
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