Nikos the Impaler

My questions is-How much were people paid to give positive reviews for this piece of crap? Maybe they were sent free screener copies of film and they felt obligated to say nice things about it? I say this because I was fooled by the reviews and I went out and bought this piece of garbage. I was expecting a semi professional film at least but I was wrong! This thing is nothing more then a glorified home video and a really poor one at that.

The gore was maybe the worst, most amateur looking work that I've ever seen in a film. The acting was horrid. Everything about this movie was terrible! I mean, if this is the director's best work, then I can't imagine how bad his other films had to be. How can any film be worse then this thing?!

Do yourself a favor. Take my word for it, this movie is awful! Not so bad it's good or anything like that, it's just plain awful. A complete waste of time and money. AVOID IT.

This movie is ridiculous. Let me add that it is fun to sit around with a bunch of friends and watch, and there's two ways to go about it. You can either put it on mute, and make up your own lines, or turn it up and listen to the ridiculous dialogue and hear people with no talent (for the most part) deliver lines. Nikos is a Romanian Barbarian or something who gets killed or something and some buffoons bring him back in modern day New York. He then proceeds to run rampant around awful sets and the few places that the film makers were allowed to shoot. Bloods flows. Much blood. I think the f/x are fantastic for what the $3.50 budget allowed. The team does a great job with what they had, and I'm guessing it was not that much. Then there's your lead characters. The guy that plays Frank has got to be kidding me. Ham is not the word. He seems to stumble throughout the film as though he's in the worst cartoon to date. Get a paper route my man. Felissa Rose, the one with the mouth from Sleepaway Camp, has her moments. But they're generally not when she's talking. Darian Caine skanks up and gets naked. There's a girl in this film, I think she's supposed to be Velma from Scooby-Doo, but she's a bit less believable than the cartoon character. There's also a bunch of doofy college kids and some dude with huge clownish hair. As for the people I have mentioned, I'm surprised they can read. Congrats. Then there's a dozen or so cops walking around this picture. I think they had 3 costumes between them all. My heart bleeds for the two officers in the movie theater, as their goofy uniforms almost take away from the fact that they're amongst a handful of people in this movie who actually belong on a screen. The short cop throws in some ham for us, the tall cop actually shows concern for the situation(he probably got fined for actually acting) and then tosses in some blatant Schnaas plugs. What does all of this mean? Rent it, buy it, steal it, whatever.....get a group of friends and watch the blood flow. That's why you get this movie. Schnaas obviously had a lot of fun throwing this together, using what he had, stretching it out, and Schnaasing it up as Nikos.

This movie is obviously a low budget splatter-flick as clearly expressed on the cover. I don't understand why reviewers are expecting great acting and Hollywood special effects. This is a project done by people who really just love what they do, and they do it for free. If you're looking for Hollywood stuff then watch Hollywood stuff. I personally enjoy this movie very much and I suggest it often because I personally know what it's like to create with no capitol. I rarely see a big budget film that sticks in my mind long enough to recommend it to others. Niko's decapitates and disembowels New York with no big names and zero budget. Andreas Schnaas writes, directs, acts and creates his own special effects. He will make it happen with rocks and dirt if he has to. Hollywood needs a thousand hands and millions of dollars and can't even do remakes well the majority of the time. Peace.

The tag line on the DVD box says it all: "The Big Apple Gets A New Immigrant And A Very Big Problem." Oh so true. Unfortunately, that immigrant isn't the barbaric Romanian Impaler, it's the lame-ass German director. Geez. If your only interest is cheap but plentiful gore, and strippers taking showers, then director Andreas Schnaas delivers. If you want a story or acting or any of the other crafts associated with motion picture story telling, you must go elsewhere. It's easy to see why his films are also known as Violent Sh*t. His list of actors makes me think that he cast the film at a horror convention. Nothing wrong with that. Sadly, he gives few of these Grade-Z horror movie veterans anything to do. Joe Zaso, in particular, is wasted as a romantic lead.

The most interesting thing about the film is the commentary track by the director. Listening to it, you come to the distinct conclusion that he felt he made a good film. Now that's hilarious.

NIKOS THE IMPALER is not actual moviemaking. It's really nothing more than a group of people wondering how much carnage they can orchestrate with a limited budget. Even for those who enjoys gore, as I do occasionally, NIKOS doesn't offer enough COMPETENT gore and blood and guts to satisfy.

Perhaps the real audience of NIKOS is those who doesn't require their gore to be well done. If so, then NIKOS is for them. It's mostly childish gore, and most of the killings come by way of decapitations. Really, once you've seen five characters getting their heads badly chopped off by a big sword, do you really need to see 10 more?

4 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detail review and reviews of films in this genre)