Unmasked Part 25

My review was written in March 1989 after watching the movie on Academy video cassette.

This British horror spoof (going direct to video Stateside) is on target with its script's satirical barbs, but is not well realized as a feature. Gore content of unrated version marks it for a specialty audience.

Filmmakers Anders Palm and Mark Cutforth are poking fun at the endless string of imitative Yank shriekers such as "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" series that substitute cliches for creativity.

Antihero Gregory Cox wear a Jason-esque goalie's mask and is given to slaughtering people in gruesome fashion until he meets kindly but kinky blind girl Fiona Evans. She befriends him and beds him, even getting him to remove his mask, revealing a hideously deformed (but subpar makeup effects) face.

In striving for black humor, pic gets bogged down in some silliness, tastelessness and pretentious writing. Reflexive material as folks recognize he hero "from his movies" is overdone, climaxing with him aghast at a theater marquee hawking the 26th film in the series. Yucky gore doesn't sit well with what is basically an intellectual exercise.

Jackson (Gregory Cox) is a disfigured maniac genetically driven to mutilate and kill; misunderstood and feared, he hides his ugly face behind a hockey mask. But Jackson also has a sensitive side to his nature, one that he is finally able to express when he meets blind beauty Shelly (Fiona Evans) during one of his massacres. Unable to see his hideous features, Shelly is drawn to Jackson's existential torment, and the two begin a tender love affair. But for how long can Jackson suppress his urge to kill?

Unmasked Pt 25 veers so wildly between brutal violence, emotional drama, and seemingly humorous moments that the true intent of director Anders Palm is never absolute: is the monster's inner turmoil supposed to be satirical or serious? Are we supposed to be amused or horrified? The plot alludes to the classic monster movies of the Universal era as well as spoofing contemporary slashers, but to what avail? Try as I might, I just couldn't figure it all out; I even considered the possibility of the schizophrenic approach having been devised to reflect the duality of Jackson's personality, but this hypothesis seemed unlikely, crap movie-making being a far more plausible reason.

Eventually, I gave up with the wild conjecture to try and explain the madness I was seeing, and ended up simply enjoying the whole thing for the incredible WTF factor, the gratuitous nudity, the dreadful late 80s London fashion disasters, and the outrageous and inventive gore, of which there is plenty, and most of which is surprisingly well handled. When all else confuses, a lampstand through the skull will always make me smile.

From reviews and comments I have read about this film I see that not many people rate it. I however beg to differ. This a fantastic film that puts a new light on the normally one dimensional stalk and slash killer. Get your mates round, buy some beer and prepare yourself for something fresh.

The gore is spectacular and Jackson even shows his face. Think Braindead or Bad Taste or even the Troma movies. They are in no way meant to be taken seriously but to this day still rank up there as some of the finest horror movies ever made. I recommend this highly, although watch it with your tongue firmly in your cheek.

Well "many years ago" we used to rent cheap movies every Tuesday as they were about 10 Dkr (2 us dollars) each. We saw a lot of bad movies and some brilliant ones. One of them was Unmasked. Or "Hand of death" as it was called here. Took me ages to find it under the real title. It is so bad that it is kind of fun. When he ends up with that blind girl and is pretty upset with her "sexual preferences".. but has no problem with killing people.. had us in stitches.

This "movie" is perfect for killing some time with a few friends and some beer..

This movie is a masterpiece - I can't believe it's not at LEAST a cult classic. It laughs at Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, all those "5 Teens in a house w/ a madman" movies, and that's just for starters. If you like this kind of humor (the European caustic, sarcasm kind, as seen in Cemetery Man, to name another great movie) you will absolutely LOVE this movie. Beautifully bad acting (intentionally so), some of the wittiest dialog I've ever seen, GREAT characters... from the basic concept of this film, all the way to the final implementation, this film is BRILLIANT! Check it out! Recommend it to all your friends! It's great, and NO ONE has ever heard of it...