Transamerican Killer

Transamerican Killer is a movie you want not to like. It is about Las Vegas, men's clubs, psycho killers, it contains lots of nudity and blood yet it is beautifully filmed. The cinematography is wonderful, the nudity scenes are tasteful. There are a lot of first time actors who are so much better than a lot of established actors that you have to wonder what SAG is all about. The plot is thin but you have so much fun watching the movie that it really doesn't matter!

Jamie flees from her psycho boyfriend only to find that he has had a sex change in order to please her.The bad news is that he has been killing off anyone she is close to in order to win back her affections."Transamerican Killer" is a sleazy slasher that features a transvestite killer plus lots of blood and nudity.It certainly delivers plenty of what the genre fan expects:T&A,gore,strippers,random killings and a little bit of chainsaw action.The story is weak and the characters are one-dimensional,but the film is never boring due to its relatively short time.The acting is awful and the lack of suspense is especially hard to forgive.Still if you liked 'em trashy or sleazy give it a look.7 out of 10 and that's being generous.

This is a movie you want to dislike. It's barely feature-film length (runs about 70 minutes and then a ridiculous 10 minute "music video recap" and a "delete scene" make up the less than 90 minutes running time), the "secret" of the film is given away on the DVD box, and even if it weren't, is blatantly obvious. But a funny thing happens when you watch it. The director revels in the very things that should sink it, and that makes it work.

For example, the lead character's Grandmother loves the film "Casblanca." They obviously didn't get clearance rights to show the film running. Most directors would have kept it out of sight and just had the characters talk about it. But not Hail. He re-shoots the climactic scene (in B&W) with actors who neither look nor sound anything like Bogart and Bergman. Another scene takes place in a hospital. But there was probably no budget for a hospital bed. So he just puts the patient in some sort of recliner instead of a bed! And to make it look "medical" they actually put an EYE CHART on the wall!!

How can you hate a movie that does things like that? It's got strippers who get naked, loads of bizarro sets, an insane psycho serial killer who hacks people up, and an awesome chainsaw battle. What more could you want for an evening of utterly mindless fun? Only real complaint is that lead actress Cara Basso stays covered up, which is made worse by the fact that she does show us her butt, and it is spectacular (to say the least). Don't know why she did stay covered up since she's done full nudity in other films, but that's the way it is, I guess.

I need a stronger word here. Awful is just too nice. If you want to see the worst movie ever made this is definitely it! I tried to understand why it is considered a horror... and i guess I came up with something interesting: You watch the hole movie having in mind only one thing "OMFG this can't be real" and when it is over you grab a knife and start killing people because you were so annoyed by the movie-that's where the horror part starts. :) Anyway if you are in the mood for fun someday try watching a movie that wants to be a horror but looks more like Scarry movie. (imagine how interesting that can be-these guys are not joking.) :)

So, a while back I had a conversion with a friend that had just seen "one of the most stupid films ever". The film in question was of course Transamerican Killer, and despite how ridiculous and rubbish she was making it sound; I have to admit that I did make a mental note to track it down if possible. After seeing the film, I can confirm that it is indeed ridiculous and rubbish...but I can't deny that I enjoyed it! At its core, Transamerican Killer is basically about obsession...although assigning any 'values' or 'themes' to this film would be doing it far too much justice. We focus on a stripper named Jamie. She's split up with her boyfriend, and the person she's left him for just happens to be another woman. Naturally, the guy is not very happy about this (as you would expect) and follows through with promise of 'changing', and gets himself a sex change operation (as you wouldn't expect). So the transsexual ex-boyfriend turns up out of nowhere and begins picking off his ex-girlfriend's friends in a bid to win her back...

The film doesn't have time to get boring - and that is because the runtime is only around an hour and ten minutes. It never transcends its 'direct to video' roots and is every bit the low-rent piece of garbage that would expect from this sort of film. But even so...it could have been a lot better. It soon becomes apparent what this film's main problem is going to be; and it hits you in the face as soon as the killer appears. It's just so obvious it's a man! It's a guy in a dress and would fool absolutely nobody. The film honestly would have been better off hiring a slightly butch actress for the role as that would have been far more believable. The whole plot is also brought down by the way that the killer arrives on the scene. I have to admit that I'm not the most knowledgeable about this sort of thing...but I'm sure you can't just "go get" a sex change. Anyway...all that stuff aside this is a mildly amusing little horror film. The kill scenes aren't too bad and the strip club where a lot of the action takes place is suitable sleazy. I won't be recommending this to anyone; but those who enjoy stupid trash movies can't fail to find something to like.