Crimewave

Crimewave is a 1985 comedy-crime-horror film about a timid home-security technician named Vic Ajax, who finds himself on death row for murders he did not commit. From the electric chair he recounts, in flashback, how a stormy night in Denver went wrong: his boss decided to do away with his business partner, and two deranged exterminators who also work as hitmen carried out the killing and then turned on the people around them, including Vic, the partner's wife, and the woman he loves. Vic appeals to Nancy, who alone can confirm that the crimes belong to the two killers, Arthur Coddish and Faron Crush.

Sam Raimi directed the film as the second of the seventeen features he has made, following The Evil Dead and preceding Evil Dead II. Joel and Ethan Coen wrote the screenplay with Raimi, and Robert Tapert produced. The cast includes Reed Birney as Vic Ajax, Louise Lasser as Helene Trend, Sheree J. Wilson as Nancy, Paul L. Smith as Faron Crush, Brion James as Arthur Coddish and Edward R. Pressman as Ernest Trend, among thirty-seven credited performers. Made for three million dollars, it runs eighty-three minutes.

Audience response has been lukewarm: on IMDb it holds 5.5 out of 10 from around 7,400 votes, and on TMDB 5.5 out of 10 from 176 votes. A smaller critics' sample gives 6.4 out of 10, somewhat higher than those viewer scores.