La main du saigneur

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..

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.

I've seen way, way, WAY too many B-Movies. I've seen all kinds: Gore films with the worst production values ever, so-bad-they're-good films shot on home videos, and films where the entire film crew was probably on some mind-altering substance during the entire production. However, no film can compare to this film. It's not that the director is throwing a bunch of random weird moments at you. No, not at all -- there aren't a lot of things going on in this movie, in particular. But what IS here is just so completely left-field in the way they handled it. I guess it's hard to describe without you actually seeing the film, but imagine combining your Hugh Grant romance movie with Bloodsucking Freaks or something, and you will probably get an idea of what this is about.

Case in point, the movie opens with the GORIEST OPENING DEATH SCENE EVER! The killer rips a guy's face off and then punches through his chest and takes out his heart! This scene just shocked me to no end, and I kept rewinding it to make sure I just witnessed what I thought I witnessed. So, already, 4 minutes or so into the movie, I just witnessed the goriest opening death scene in history, and I'd like to think that the creators of this film would take this element even further in the movie. Well, that doesn't really happen. You see, the killer then proceeds to kill people in less gory ways... and... then the film spends about 40 minutes detailing his love life with a blind woman.

And the love life with the blind woman involves a man who sort of resembles the Toxic Avenger wearing "sexy clothes" like silk red boxers and stuff and making really awkward love to the blind woman. Then, they walk on the beach and discuss life. THEN, just when you forgot that this is a horror movie, more killing! And the killing's kind of pick back up (it's almost as if they used all their budget on the first scene and didn't have any money left to do any more killing for a few weeks, so they just spent those weeks filming the love scenes crap), and the last killing is by far one of the most mean-spirited things I've ever seen (spoilers, if you care): The killer slits his blind girlfriend's throat for no apparent reason right after she says "I love you" and then she screams, "NO, NO, NOOOOOOO." It's quite mean. Quite. (no more spoilers)

The back of the box says that this is supposed to be a spoof, but -- besides the fact that the main killer, "Jackson", is wearing a hockey mask and the title has a "part 25" in it -- you couldn't really tell that from the movie. Probably the weirdest film ever.

I rented this movie a while ago and I really liked it. To my surprise I saw a copy for sale and bought yesterday. Just watched it and well, I was super disappointed. It was totally cut missing most of the gore, male/female frontal nudity and violence. I was so mad.

+Stay away from the box that says rated R+

Anyway, the movie is funny and you gotta love the clothes these people wear. The accents somethings get to you, but other than that it is a lot of fun to watch.

This is sort of a Friday the 13th comedy. The killer even wears a hockey mask!

Its an ok film, but must only be viewed by lovers of the horror genre. Deaths couldve been better. The british of the film kind of gets annoyin, but its ok. It's also slow paced, not enough slashings and i dont find it all that satiricle. Very similar to the film the Toxic Avenger in certain ways.