This week I watched a pair of eighties
slashers,
Joe Giannone's 1981 flick
Madman and
Buddy Cooper's
The Mutilator from 1984, the latter of which I had never seen before.
Madman was technically a re-watch, but
I remembered little past the antagonist named Marz and the opening
where the inevitable dickhead screwed over everyone in the movie by
doing the thing that they're not supposed to do. I recall this being
decent when I was a kid, but it did not hold up well. I just have so
many questions.
This was supposed to be a camp for
gifted children, but there are only five and half of them looked as old
as the people watching over them. And by “watching over
them”, I mean they stuffed them in a cabin so they could go drink and
screw. You know, usual slasher stuff.
|
Gaylen Ross in Madman |
Gaylen Ross was in this movie - under the
assumed name of Alexis Dubin - and God bless her because she's one of the
few bright spots. I wonder if she was as confounded as I was
while doing that awkward, awkward hot tub scene that went on
forever.
Madman does have two other points of
interest. I realized this movie was the root of my phobia about car
hoods falling on my head while I'm leaning in to check the fluids –
that rod is so flimsy, I don't trust it! Then, there's that classic
scene where Ellie (Jan Claire) panics and hides in the refrigerator.
And the most ridiculous thing is that
it worked! She'd have been fine if she'd just stayed in there for
more than thirty seconds. Lastly, I think the main detractor was that the ending sooooked. It's super frustrating seeing the
Final Girl get smoked at the zero hour, but the guy who'd been
wandering around the woods alone almost the entire movie –
stumbling into the killer's cabin twice I might add – somehow
managed to get picked up at the end. Unacceptable!
Moving onto The Mutilator which had
somehow eluded my eyes until now. This had a slightly less annoying
bunch of good looking people, including
Matt Mitler, star of such
unclassics as
Breeders and
Deadtime Stories. In typical slasher form,
they go to a remote location, engage in some drinking and fraternizing and then get picked off by a guy who likes to
sleep with his axe.
Speaking of fraternizing, this one also has a
weird sexy water time sequence, made so by music that would've been
more at home in some seventies TV police drama. Sadly, The Mutilator
committed the cardinal sin of killing the hottest girl (Frances Raines) first. In slow
motion, no less. Actually, Imdb tells me that was a last minute change because they couldn't get their original gore gag to go. Also, they
put milk in the pool to make it cloudy. Gross.
So the killer – who it's not a reveal
to say is Mitler's dad – was hella pissed. In an unnecessarily
nasty scene, he jabbed a giant fish hook through a gal's groin before
beheading her. I have to ask, why so furious? I get it, your kid
accidentally shot your wife, but you know what? You could've also
locked up your arsenal of loaded guns. Just saying.
The Mutilator featured better gore –
two sizable continuity errors notwithstanding – so I'll give the
edge to this one over Madman, but they are both definitely
second-tier efforts.