SUMMER OF TERROR: The Real Son of Sam Story.

• Position: Review

SUMMER OF TERROR: The Real Son of Sam Story MPI HOME VIDEO, 49 MINUTES, $19.98

Between the summers of 1976 and 1977, New York City was terrorized by a serial killer, first labeled the .44 Killer in the screaming tabloid headlines, then the Son of Sam after he so identified himself in letters to the police and newspapers. Before postal worker David Berkowitz was arrested on Aug. 11, 1977, by members of the task force formed to hunt him down, he had murdered six people and left seven others wounded.

Piecing the story together with crime scene films, dramatized simulations of the shootings, newsreel footage, shots of a snarling dog (symbolizing his neighbor's black Labrador retriever, Sam, the dog Berkowitz claimed to be taking orders from), and interviews with former task force members, a police psychologist, assorted...