2014’s Happy Face Killer is loosely-based on the real-life crimes of Keith Hunter Jesperson.

Jesperson was a truck driver who, in the early 90s, murdered at least eight women in six different states.  (Jesperson later claimed that he murdered over 160 but no one knows if that’s true or not.  For his part, Jesperson has a habit of retracting his confessions shortly after giving them.)  The product of an abusive childhood, Jesperson’s trademark was drawing a smiley face on either the bodies of his victim or on the locations where he dumped them.  A good deal of Jesperson’s crime spree was inspired by anger that someone else had falsely confessed to one of his murders.  Jesperson left graffiti in truck stops all over Oregon, letting people know that the “Happy Face Killer” was still out there.

In The Happy Face Killer, Jesperson is played by David Arquette.  The film makes good use of Arquette’s naturally goofy screen persona, showing how a serial killer like Jesperson could convince someone to climb into his truck in the first place.  Arquette plays Jesperson as someone who comes across as being maybe a little bit nerdy and little but off-center but who still manages to present himself as being a likable guy.  It’s only once he has his victim alone in his truck that Jesperson allows the mask to slip and reveals his true self.  Whether making overly glib videos in which he brags about being a murderer or considering whether he should let one potential victim live because she has a baby, Arquette portrays Jesperson as being an all-too plausible and familiar monster.  The film’s best moments are the ones where Jesperson is struggling to hold up his façade of normality.  It’s those scenes that make the viewers realize that we’ve all probably known a Keith Jesperson or two.  Indeed, I think one reason why serial killers have such a hold on the culture right now is because it’s totally possible that anyone of us might know one.  Who knows what their neighbors or their co-workers are really doing behind closed doors?

Where the film falters is in its portrayal of the investigation that led to Jesperson’s eventual capture.  In real life, Jesperson panicked after the police questioned him about reports that he had been seen with some of the Happy Face Killer’s victims.  Afraid that he was going to be arrested, Jesperson twice attempted (and failed) to commit suicide before eventually turning himself in and confessing to the crimes in hopes of getting a lenient sentence.  In the film, the investigation is headed up by a tough-as-nails FBI agent (played by Gloria Ruben), who is haunted by the murder of her sister and who spends a lot of time apologizing to dead bodies and fighting the forces of the patriarchy.  The scenes with Ruben feel a bit too derivative of every other serial killer film that has ever been made and Ruben’s flat performance fails to bring much depth to her one-note character.  The scenes of Ruben snapping at the condescending men who think that a woman can’t catch a serial killer feel less like empowerment and more like pandering.

The Happy Face Killer is at its most effective when it focuses on the loneliness of the late night truck stop and the danger hiding behind the smiling face of the seemingly friendly man offering you a ride.  David Arquette gives a frightening performance as the soulless Jespersen.  In real life, Keith Jespersen is currently serving four life sentences and will hopefully never see the outside of a prison again.