Knight Moves (film)

1992 film by Carl Schenkel
Knight Moves is a 1992 thriller film, directed by Carl Schenkel and written by Brad Mirman, about a chess grandmaster who is accused of several grisly murders.

In 1972 David and Peter face each other in a chess match. David, the loser, stabs the winner Peter with a fountain pen. The loser's savage attack on his childhood opponent after his public humiliation and defeat leads to the dissolution of his parents' marriage. His father leaves forever, and the boy finds his mother dying from suicide from a slashed wrist, yet he ignores her and retrieves his locked away chessboard. The boy spends the next twenty years in and out of asylums and foster care and is never seen again. In the meantime, Peter becomes one of the youngest, most successful chess grandmasters in history. A brilliant yet troubled widower with a beloved daughter, he suddenly finds himself a suspect in his casual lover's murder. When more homicides occur, newly appointed Police Captain Frank Sedman and his partner Detective Andy Wagner determine that a serial killer is at work. As the chess master becomes more and more connected to the deaths, psychologist Kathy Sheppard is brought in to figure out if the chess prodigy is as innocent as he claims to be.

Filming took place on location in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The exterior of the hotel is actually Hatley Castle which is part of the Hatley Park National Historic Site. The interiors were filmed in a German studio as well as the Tea Lobby of the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria. Lambert and Lane were married in real life during the production, having been married from 1988 to 1994.

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 17% based on reviews from six critics.

The film was a modest financial success in the United States, grossing $560,580 and finishing at 15th in its opening week, it had a total gross of $853,554. In Germany, the film had almost two million viewers. It became Carl Schenkel's most commercially successful movie.