The Mutilator

On the day of his father's birthday, the boy Ed decides to clean his father's hunting rifle and accidentally shoots and kills his mother that was baking a cake in the kitchen. His father Ed Sr. (Jack Chatham) is mentally affected by the incident. Years later, Ed (Matt Mitler) is in a bar with college friends and they do not know what to do in the holidays, since they have not reserved any place to go. Out of the blue, Ed receives a phone call from his estranged father that asks him to close his fishing house in an island since it is off season. His friends invite themselves to go with him and spend a couple of days on the beach. Ed drives to the island with his girlfriend Pam (Ruth Martinez) and the couples Ralph (Bill Hitchcock) and Sue (Connie Rogers), and Mike (Morey Lampley) and Linda (Frances Raines). They find the house open and an ax missing, but do not report to the police. Further, there is noone in the island but them. Soon a killer starts to kill them one by one and hang them in a locker in the house garage. Who might be the serial-killer?

"The Mutilator" is an amateurish and low-budget slasher with good special effects. The unknown cast is histrionic, but the girls are very beautiful. The storyline is very simple and gives only the reason for a haywire man to kill guests in his house. The deaths are original, like in most movies of the slasher genre. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Mutilador" ("The Mutilator")

This film is many in a line of trash horror films. When I first read the back of the video box I laughed, six teenagers going on their summer vacation. Cliche? If you are a fan of rubbish horror films then you'll love this, the acting is so bad it's good. The characters begin to get on your nerves eventually with their pole up their backside style acting, and you begin to wish for them to get killed, which in turn makes the film even better as you egg on the killer, "go on ram a knife through his all American face...go on...go on...YES!!!" If you watch this film expecting Oscar winning performances then you'll be sorely disappointed, having said that, if you watch this for any kind of performance whatsoever you'll be disappointed. The violence is over the top and it's great. It's the only saving grace of the film. However, all this aside, if you don't expect too much, then you'll be rewarded.

My guess is, if you're reading this review, you're already aware of those movies that are indeed so bad they're actually quite enjoyable. Well, THE MUTILATOR is a prime example of such a flick, at times comical and on the odd occasion impressively gruesome.

It opens grimly with a tragic and fateful accident. A young boy - who we later find out is called Ed - who's cleaning his father's rifles, accidentally fires one of them, killing his mother instantly. Daddy arrives home , and lets just say that he doesn't seem like the forgiving type! He slaps the kid round the face and points a loaded shotgun at him forcing the petrified child to flee from the house. We are then left with an effectively chilling scene showing the dad looking clearly disturbed, pouring whisky into the corpse's mouth before downing some himself. Fast forward ten years and Ed is now a wise-cracking teen. To make matters worse he's made himself some stereotypically cheesy early eighties friends that all look like they make up the perfect ingredients for a good old fashioned blood bath! Before long they're all of to close down Ed's dad's secluded beach house , and guess who's ominously creeping about armed with a chainsaw and watching them...

Ok, ok so there are certainly no Oscar nominees here (Watch out for Mike played by Morey Lampley, he's a real budding thespian!), and at times the film can seem to drag a bit - mostly in what seems like hours of character building. But what saves this surprisingly gory (in it's uncut version) little flick from becoming a total loss is how at times it manages to generate a genuinely macabre atmosphere. This is most evident when the maniac dreams of slicing his infant son's throat with a battle axe, or when he impales the heads of his victims on to spikes in a rack as if they're some kind of trophy. All the other trademark cliches are included: the clearly asthmatic killer (heavy breath, a virgin final girl, a dopey sheriff, an axe, chainsaw, pitch fork and even a giant fish hook! Mark Shostrom's gore is also a lot more visible now (in the UK prints) thanks to VIPCO's extreme version and a much more lenient censor!

So all in all not brilliant but not rubbish either, a worthy rental for a night of harmless and memorable cliches!

For a tiny budgeted little movie, the effects work is fantastic even when the thin script can make you scratch your head and twiddle your thumbs. Some of the actors are decent, but some are downright laughable. The killer isn't very imposing to look at, but he does some serious damage and there's a catchy theme song. The Mutilator might be middle of the road as slashers go, but there are fast worse ones out there and the effects give it that little extra bit of pizazz to give it a solid cult following.

A young man named Ed (Matt Mitler) takes a group of friends to his dad's beach condo for the weekend, resulting in blood-drenched mutilation, decapitation, and death by pitchfork. One skinny-dipping couple meets up with the business end of an outboard motor! Not even the local police are safe!

Although the victims are basic slasher fodder, THE MUTILATOR (aka: FALL BREAK) has a unique twist to it, in that we know who the killer is from the beginning. We even know why these people are being killed. Despite this, it's fairly effective, and shows how a little bitterness can go a long way...