An ancient madman mutilates the young for slighting him while an aging, sad-sack detective gets caught up in his gruesome web of revenge 

SYNOPSIS:

A madman stalks a bank manager and for twisted reasons brutally mutilates and murders her in her home in a bizarre act of punishment. Del Stringer, an aging, burned out, recently demoted and vulnerable cop is pulled in on the case. He’s battling alcoholism and a losing streak, so he badly needs to prove himself to his estranged wife Gloria and save what little is left of his reputation. He quickly earns the scorn of his new supervisor, the tough, no-nonsense Mavis Richfield who feels stuck with Stringer as one of her foot soldiers on the case. Stringer is assigned the job of investigating the leading suspects; the bank manager’s snide ex-boyfriend and a smarmy but disgruntled male underling at her workplace, who resents her promotion over him. Frustrated with their evasion and disrespect, Stringer hits a local bar to drink away his troubles. Unbeknownst to him, Stringer has been “shadowed” by the killer, who watches as a floozy at the bar belittles Stringer when he talks to her. After a humiliated Stringer leaves, the killer butchers the floozy in the bar’s parking lot, but this time he carves up her face before finishing her off. In a crazy way, the killer has identified with the aging and hapless Stringer. Stringer’s perceived enemies are now his! Stringer’s life gets complicated when he’s called back to the second crime scene minutes later. He reluctantly tells Richfield about his earlier presence at the bar, and she soon discovers he also had an unpleasant interaction with the victim. Stringer’s behavior has made him a suspect! Stringer spends that night “shadowing” the banker’s ex-boyfriend while the killer disposes of another player in the case; the young pathologist who analyzed the body of the first victim. Stringer catches up with the bloodied, disheveled looking suspect in the early morning hours, but he is able to provide Stringer with concrete, yet despicable evidence of his night with a paid female sadist to prove his innocence. Richfield is forced to bring in Dr. Horst to examine the second victim. He is an ancient, crippled but still physically imposing pathologist who was partially retired from the department for signs of encroaching senility a few months earlier. Stringer joins the meeting at the morgue, where he is praised by Horst for his experience, but ordered by an impatient Richfield to provide a DNA sample to rule himself out as a suspect. After providing a sample, Stringer returns home to review the last tapes from the bank lobby where he discovers the possible identity of the true killer, Dr. Horst, and gets an inkling about his motives. He races to Horst’s home to confront him and gets nowhere, but a freak occurrence as he is leaving suggests Richfield is in the house! He locates Richfield who is still alive but mauled in a most terrible fashion. Horst attacks Stringer from the shadows and a gory fight ensues with Stringer eventually winning. However, he can’t fulfill Richfield’s desperate plea to end her life, nor provide solace to those that love her. Nevertheless, Stringer comes to a dramatic self-realization at the end, which leads to a decision that may both salvage his relationship with Gloria and his soul.

SHADOW MEN