I’m going to start off by saying this movie is yet another motherfucking Eric Stoltz movie, and I don’t know where he gets off. This is not Stultz September, go away!

A Killer in the Family is a 1983 made-for-TV movie about (real life killer) Gary Tison, a father of three serving two life sentences in Arizona for killing a prison guard. He’s the titular killer in the family, you see. In this movie, Gary is played by Robert Mitchum. When it comes to ole Bobby I have exactly three favorite things: his role in Scrooged, his role in Night of the Hunter, and his voiceover at the end of Tombstone (“Tom Mix wept.”).

Anyway, Spader plays the oldest of the three boys, Donny. Donny is a good boy who’s pre-law (second movie in a row!!) and his brothers Ray and Ricky are real yokels. Like one of them is overalls at one point iirc. Donny catches wind of their plan to break their dad out of jail because they think another prisoner is going to shank him. Turns out there are lots of killers in lots of families, I guess. Donny is very much against it but realizes his dumb fucking idiot brothers are probably not equipped to even drive a car so he tags along.

They manage to break their dad and his cellmate out and head for the Mexican border, just pile in The Chase. Unlike The Chase the Tisons never earn their freedom. Daddy does unload into a family of hours, just fucking annihilates them, as his sons watch in abject horror. Look, do you not know the name of the movie you’re in?

This one was super solid on my opinion… it’s crazy that it was a TV movie. I didn’t have a lot of hopes for it but it really surprised me. Stoltz? Good. Mitchum? Good. Spader? Good! it’s not on Tubi tho. Bad!

I fell sleep three times writing this so that’s enough. Goodnight!