In an obvious effort to cash in on the recent Spike Lee movie, CBS has released an hour-long video, Summer of Terror: The Real Son of Sam Story. The tale itself is creepy enough: during the late '70s crime spree, various people get shot, usually in their cars, and New York is caught up in a wave of paranoia as police appear helpless to stop the slaughter. This doc is pretty conventional stuff, though, full of interviews with the experts who solved the crime. Most notable is the footage of a recent interview with David Berkowitz himself, who now claims to have found god and reformed his ways (a phony stance, critics contend, that he has taken merely to secure an early parole).

Summer of Terror is an all-too-standard review of the basic story. It left me dying to see Spike's movie again; Summer of Sam was one of the most overlooked films of the year--stylish and clever, it was easily one of the director's best. In this case, truth wasn't stranger than the fictionalized version.

Finally, even I could not sit through The Van, a 1976 "comedy" about a young dude who gets a boogie van to score with the chicks. Lots of jiggling delivers very little giggling. The Danny DeVito supporting role is not worth it--really.

--Matthew Hays