Jennifer 8
- IMDb link: 0104549
- IMDb rating: 6.3 (19,606 votes)
- Genres: Thriller, Crime, Drama, Mystery
- Director: Andy Garcia, Bruce Robinson
- Cast: Uma Thurman, Lance Henriksen, Graham Beckel and others
- Release date: 6 Nov 1992
- Release year: 1992
- Runtime: 124 minutes
- Country: United States
- Keywords: christmas, surprise ending, character name in title, mysterious killer, investigation, unsolved case, serial killer, blind woman, blindness, number in title
Plot:
John Berlin is a cop teetering toward burnout from life on the streets of Los Angeles, and the collapse of a bad marriage. At the invitation of an old friend, fellow cop Freddy Ross, he bolts from the LAPD for a supposedly quieter life in rural California with the Eureka police force. Instead, he prickles his new colleagues, including John "J.K." Taylor, who was passed over for promotion in order to make room for Berlin, by reopening the case of a serial killer of blind girls which went unsolved despite a full-time six-month effort by the department. The case has already cost the lives of seven victims. Berlin is trying to connect it to a body found at a dump, but Taylor and Chief Citrine refuse to believe that it is in any way connected to the case. Berlin becomes convinced that "Jennifer 8" -- or victim 8 -- will be blind student Helena Robertson, whose roommate, Amber, was the seventh victim. Berlin becomes obsessed with the case, despite an almost complete lack of hard evidence, and he becomes romantically involved with Helena, who resembles his ex-wife. Concerned for his physical and emotional welfare, Ross accompanies him on a stakeout at the institute where Helena lives in a dorm, after leaving her at a party with Ross' wife, Margie. When Berlin and Ross see lights in the closed school, Berlin investigates and is knocked unconscious by the killer, who then shoots Ross dead with Berlin's gun. After a grueling interrogation by FBI agent St. Anne, who thinks it Berlin was the killer, he is arrested for the murder, but is bailed out by Margie, who believes the truth that he is not the killer. He sets out to clear his name by finding the killer.