The Killing of America
The Killing of America, released in Japan as Violence USA, is a 1981 mondo film directed by Sheldon Renan. The film was premiered in New York City in February 1982 and was shown at the 2013 Fantasia Festival.
Synopsis
The Killing of America focuses on what the director feels is the decline of the United States. It features interviews from Ed Dorris, a retired sergeant of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, as well as Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi. The documentary also shows several interviews with convicted killers such as Sirhan Sirhan as well as footage of murders and news broadcasts. It connects the beginning of America's woes with the assassination of John F. Kennedy and posits that hope of recovery was snuffed out when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. According to the film the 1960s saw the rise of "sniper" mass murderers who were often white, well-adjusted people that killed people seemingly at random. The 1970s saw the rise of what the film calls "sex killers", serial killers such as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy who also raped and sexually abused their victims. A section of the film also analyses the Cleveland [Elementary School shooting (San Diego)|Cleveland Elementary School shooting] in 1979, in which a 16-year-old teenager opened fire on a group of children and staff from her window opposite an elementary school in San Diego, injuring 9 people and killing the school's principal and a janitor.The last part of the film goes over the murder of John Lennon and ends with footage from a Central Park vigil for the slain musician. The narrators' last lines are: "Two people were shot at this Central Park vigil. While you watched this movie, five more of us were murdered; one was the random killing of a stranger."