Zipperface

This film takes horror to another level. A truly unique, edge of your seat thrill ride of hellish fear. The character of "Zipperface" is so sickeningly deranged (yet twistedly realistic), there were moments where I had to pause my VCR in order to wretch uncontrollably out of sheer terror. As "Zipperface" descents into a whirlwind of madness, I was almost able to feel his grasp on his own sanity frantically slipping into a maniacal world. Nearly paralyzed by his demonic acts, I watched as he unremorsfully murdered not one, but SEVERAL hookers with a variety of bone chilling devices of torture. The unfortunate whores were only able to scream for a mere moment before their inevitable demise, but those very screams haunted my mind and soul for days. Although I purchased this terrifying film at the dollar store, I feel it was almost worth the money, and would even go as far as saying it could be categorized with such classics as: "Bride of Chucky", "Ninja Cheerleaders", and "Nympho Zombies". Bravo, to the entire cast and crew! I am still anxiously awaiting the sequel!

Creepy facemasks and slasher movies have gone together like cheese and chives throughout the lengthy lifespan of the cycle. People often assume that it was John Carpenter that started the trend, but as is the case with many of the genre's clichés - the Italians did it first. Movies like Eyeball, Torso and Blood and Black Lace were the originators of a hooded maniac in a murder mystery. There were also a couple of American pre-Halloween slashers that warrant a mention. Classroom Massacre, Keep my Grave Open and Savage Weekend clearly pre-date 1978, whilst The Town that Dreaded Sundown is widely regarded as one of the first teen-kill movies.

Carpenter's seminal flick may not have been the maiden masked nightmare, but it certainly started the competitive race between directors to unveil the spookiest disguise for their bogeymen. Over the years we've seen some memorable contenders, but my favourites would have to be: My Bloody Valentine's maniacal miner, The Prowler's sadistic soldier and Wicked Games' copper-faced assassin. I'm also keen on many of the killer clowns that have made an appearance throughout the category. The final scene in The House on Sorority Row has to be listed as one of the best and The Clown of Midnight also ranks highly amongst the greatest madmen's costumes.

A leather mask was probably the last type to be used in a slasher movie, probably because they are widely linked with sexual perversion, which of course doesn't exactly make for a scary disguise. But in later years both Blackout and this obscurity decided that fear could certainly be incorporated with a gimp suit. Here's how the later of the two fared…

The screen lights up with the rush of blue sirens, as cops race to the scene of a hostage situation. It seems that a stressed-out gentleman has possibly had enough of being cast as an extra in cruddy low-brow turkeys, so he's decided to hold his wife and kid at gunpoint. Detective Shine (David Clover) manages to wrestle with the gunman, but unluckily for him he looses the fight to grab a loose pistol and it looks like it's the end of the road for the grey haired officer. Fortunately he is saved in the nick of time by some precision marksmanship from Lisa Ryder (Donna Adams), the California Police Department's hottest female law-enforcer.

Her heroic encounter earns the brunette a promotion to Detective first class, and its a feat that is heavily envied by her male counterparts. Meanwhile a leather-clad maniac is jollying around town slaughtering hookers and dumping their bloody corpses on street corners. Ryder and Shine are put on the case of the murderous gimp and their first call of questioning is a sleazy back street photographer called Michael Walker (John Mandell). Lisa is such a top notch inspector that normal Police regulation doesn't seem to apply to her, so before long she's dating the cameraman even though he's suspect numero uno. When the bodies continue to pile up around the city, she decides to go undercover in an attempt to flush out the S & M madman…

If anything, Zipperface effortlessly sums up all that went wrong with the slasher genre towards the end of its rein. What started as a great stepping-stone for up and coming filmmakers and thespians had been reduced to a sewer of cinema faeces by movies with flat direction, zero suspense or shocks and talentless mediocre actors. The boom years of early eighties splatter flicks managed to conceal their lack of strong dramatic line-ups with gooey special effects and exciting directorial flourishes. Unfortunately, by this point in the cycle titles like Rush Week, Deadly Dreams and The Majorettes had seemed to be produced in a conspiracy to put the category where many of the aforementioned feature's characters ended up. In an early grave.

Donna Adams doesn't even vaguely convince as an officer of the law and her inexplicably idiotic behaviour - which includes doing a striptease for a top suspect in a nationwide murder investigation - is more mind numbingly pathetic than you might ever expect it to be. Mansour Pourmand couldn't direct traffic and the wide majority of the cast members would struggle to get a second reading for a radio commercial. I searched and searched, but found nothing here of merit or note.

On the plus side, if you manage to keep the TV turned on until the end then you may be fairly surprised by the killer's identity. To be honest though, I doubt that by that time you'll even care. And another plus point? Well, erm.... the disc is perfectly symmetrical, which means that you could use it as a matt to place your cup of tea upon?? Aside from that there's really no other reason to go out and buy Zipperface. Bad bad bad and not in a good way, this is 90 minutes of my life that I could have spent more constructively by plucking my chest-hair. Abysmal.

What did hell freeze over, or did pigs fly.How on earth was this movie ever allowed to, see the light of day. the acting was worst than second rate. I think that anyone who has seen this film, needs to walk right in to the ocean. the studio who produced this movie should be eviscerated

Wow! This is the movie that should be shown on TV at Two in the morning on Cinemax for all those insomniacs (lord knows they'd probably pass out from boredom watching this movie) Terrible acting, the killer is quite far from scary, I've seen clowns at carnivals that were scarier. Lot's of unnecessary 'skin' in this film, pseudo-porn scenes which are just horrible in more ways than a million, a gawdy soap opera style script which really hurt the movie and the director really had no flair for whatever genre he was trying to create with this film. I could see a group of teenagers with their parents camcorders doing better work than this. I don't think there is a part of me that could recommend this film to anyone...

The first thing you should know about "Zipperface" is that it was shot on video, so it has that peculiar "home-video-ish" look that is terribly distracting and makes it hard to take this seriously as a "real" film. And "Zipperface" indeed looks as if a bunch of amateurs got together for an attempt at a "real" serial-killer thriller. It's not quite that, but it's not as bad as it looks, either. Having a woman as one of the two detectives on the case puts a spin on the exploitation genre. Dona Adams gives an appealingly amateurish performance in the role - her obvious inexperience in front of the camera somehow works for her. Plus, she puts up a GREAT fight against the killer at the end. The red herrings appear ludicrous at first, but ultimately they work - I guessed the killer INcorrectly. And you have to wonder if perhaps Tarantino had seen the Zipperface guy when he came up with the idea of "The Gimp" for "Pulp Fiction". (*1/2)