Sexykiller, morirás por ella

Barbara is a university student who enjoys killing people even more than she enjoys sex, and as the bodies pile up the hunt is on for the Campus Killer. The opening scene spoofs Scream in a girls' changing room, good start. Sadly it soon went downhill for me when she starts narrating a series of flashbacks to her next victim. Later on a bunch of zombies get added to the mix, making this a slasher/zombie spoof. It does get rather silly and the film tries to cram in too much. It is quite fast paced, being Spanish language I found it a little hard at times reading the subtitles and trying to see what was happening at the same time. The comedy side does get too much at times but there is plenty of gore to help balance it out. I won't be giving it a second viewing.

This is the movie that would have resulted if a Spanish fashion designer had adapted American Psycho whilst on acid. Full of jokes and nods to the genre (not all of which work), but this is still well worth a watch.

The opening scene in this film gives a pretty good indication of the philosophy of the film-makers. In it we have a group of hot semi-naked young women in a changing room, while an ominous character in a Scream mask looks on from a secret location; it ends with the tables being turned and the intruder being killed by one of the cute girls. The reason that this scene indicates what this film is all about is that it ridicules clichés of the horror genre while simultaneously celebrating them. This Spanish horror-comedy is a film that resolutely does not take itself seriously. It feels a bit like Pieces (1982) meets Re-Animator (1984) with a female serial killer. The story revolves around a series of university campus killings carried out by a medical student called Bárbara. But that's only half the story as it also includes a development later in the story where a new serum is introduced that has the ability of bringing back the dead, meaning that all the killers victims return as flesh-eating zombies. So, it would be fair to say that this one certainly tries to cover its horror bases that's for sure.

The lead is Macarena Gómez who gives a good performance here. The role is one that offers a fair bit of fun with the character frequently breaking the fourth wall to tell us her story. The jokes are sometimes very good too, my favourite one being the fact that some male zombies can only be dispatched by shooting them in the penis rather than the traditional target of the head on account of the fact that 'some men only think with their dicks!' The combination of a slasher movie with a zombie flick is one that is of course completely absurd but it essentially works here in a film that is wilfully ridiculous from the outset. It's a fast-paced and amusing movie which at least tries to come up with something new, even if it does just mash genres up in order to do this. Definitely an entertaining film though and one which seems to have gone under the radar somewhat which doesn't seem right and, ultimately, you can't go too wrong with a premise involving a hot girl serial killer.

This movie materializes the ultimate definition of a crowd-pleaser. I watched "Sexy Killer" in a practically sold-out theater at the Brussels International Fantasy Film Festival and the whole audience literally went out of their minds with enthusiasm and delirium. This is a pleasantly deranged, no-barrels-held, unscrupulous and 100% original miscellany of bloody horror and vulgar comedy; easily the most flamboyant movie of its type of the last 10 years or so. Many movies ambitiously try to mix horror and comedy ingredients but miserably fail, whereas "Sexy Killer" succeeds without seemingly too much efforts. I won't claim all gags and comical references are equally triumphant, but generally speaking this Spanish movie from director Miguel Martí ("Fin de Curso") and writer Paco Cabezas ("The Appeared") is a genuine winner and I hope it will find popularity and distribution outside of the Festival circuit as well. The main trump of the film is undoubtedly lead actress Macarena Gómez and her unique depiction of the eccentric yet lovable protagonist character Barbara. She's a medical student with the vanity and obnoxious ego of Paris Hilton and the homicidal tendencies of Ted Bundy. Barbara addresses to the camera and explains in great detail how she commits the murders and why (kind of like in "Man Bites Dog" but even sillier) and she considers herself to be a very normal twenty-something girl with normal needs and desires. She doesn't even need to cover up her serial killing crimes, because who would ever suspect a cute, fragile and cherubic looking student like her? But then our serial killer queen falls in love, and her brainiac-boyfriend just invented a device that brings all of Barbara's murder victims back to life as vengeful zombies. Will she be stolid enough to kill them all again and live happily ever with her boyfriend? Miguel Martí and Paco Cabezas are obviously two completely horror-obsessed geeks, as they processed a massive number of tributes, inside jokes and references towards several classics of the genre into their screenplay. The fact they couldn't decide to make a serial killer movie or a zombie flick and then simply combined the two themes into one demented movie should already say enough about their devotion to the world of horror. "Sexy Killer" is an unceasingly entertaining movie, with colorful characters and typical horror clichés that are deliberately magnified to emphasize the comedic effect. There's the stalk-and-slaughter scene at the girls' locker room at the beginning (with a fantastic twist), the zombie resurrecting sequence at the morgue, the fraternity house party turning into a bloodbath near the end and much, much more! The gore effects are explicit, the sleaze is gratuitous and the humor is often crude and tasteless, but yet this movie remains accessible and hilarious at all times. See this film, if possible with friends and a truckload of alcohol and you will have a guaranteed blast.

Sexy Killer is a Spanish comedy about a woman who as the title states is a serial killer and very sexy. Can she continue her work of killing and find love?

This movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival Sept 12th 2008 and was received very positively in both showings. Festival audiences generally greet films warmly, but both audiences were exceptionally enthusiastic about this film. In the showing I attended people laughed throughout and there were even a couple instances were they applauded DURING the movie, which is a rare thing. And this was even considering that it was being seen by a largely English-speaking audience and it's in Spanish with sub-titles!

I think what made people respond so strongly was first, the movie was just a huge amount of fun. If there was slow boring moment in the movie I wasn't aware of it. Secondly was the serial killer herself, played charismatically by Macarena Gomez, who is so unapologetic, certain in her own justification for killing, so gleeful in her work, that you can't help but hope the best for her! You may even find yourself cheering for her!!

While Sexy Killer, does reference a few Hollywood horror films, it is far more than a parody and stands on it's own a good solid comedy. There are some gory moments in the movie (a couple of which get huge laughs), so it might not be OK for very young children but it is all played for fun.

This was my last movie of the Festival and a great way to end it!