1982
11 kills
First Kill - 6 minutes
Drill, drill, drill... What's up with this guy and his drill? If there's one thing Blackie Woo won't be able to say about this movie, it's "Too much chillin', not enough drillin'."
This movie starts off with some really cool horror movie music and shows us a newspaper on a doorstep. The headline reads something like: Russ Thorn Escapes From Mental Institution. No mystery here, jack. Once the killing starts, you won't have to guess who's doing it.
Next, we meet Trish, who rolls out of bed and shows us her breasts. As she leaves for school, she tells her parents, who are leaving town for the weekend, goodbye. After school's over, she goes to basketball practice, gets all sweaty, and joins the girls for a shower afterwards. In the shower, they all talk about Trish's slumber party and other girl things. ("Hey! I think your tits are getting bigger!") They contemplate asking the "new girl," Valerie, but decide it's just for the old gang. Valerie overhears some mean words and runs out. After the shower, Russ drills one of Trish's friends, but decides to wait and get the rest of them at the slumber party.
By this point, I wasn't sure if this movie was attempting to be serious or not. However, once the girls arrive for the party, the comedy ensues. "It's not how big your mouth is, it's what's in it that counts," one of the girls says. But then another tries to use the same joke for a penis, and it just doesn't work. Luckily, it doesn't take long for Russ to arrive and add some life to the party.
Now, let's take a look at Russ. For the first half of the movie, I was disappointed with him. I told myself that if he just uses that drill for the whole movie, it's gonna suck. But I don't know. He convinced me by the end. That's his trademark. If he were a Star Wars action figure, he'd come with that drill. (Hey, that's not a bad idea...) Not only does he have a little humor in him, but he also likes to keep a running count of his kills! There's one part where the doorbell rings and the kids assume it's the pizza man. One of the guys at the party yells through the door, "What's the damage?" "6... so far," is the answer. Now, something told me it was Russ at the door, but I had only counted 5 kills. Ah... but Russ had me. The kid opened the door, with his $6 ready, and there was the pizza man, dead as a dog. The damage was 6. There's another part where Russ decides to count his victims and he realizes one is missing. So, he tracks him down and makes sure he's dead this time. See, it pays to know how many you've killed so far.
I won't say Russ is the perfect killer. Trademark or not, you'd like to see some variety. (He uses a knife twice, but only because the people try to attack him with it first.) Also, we really only see 4 or 5 of the kills. I guess the budget didn't allow for it. We see the gore later, just not the kill itself. We see the usual shadow and stuff.
As for the movie itself, we've got some issues going on here as far as feminism is concerned. I can't tell if the girls are supposed to be strong and independent, or stupid and weak. I do know this... they have a really bad habit of stating the obvious. "The lights went out!", "The line's been cut!", and "He's dead alright!" were my favorites. And why are they obsessively analysing last night's Dodger's game?? Seriously. This movie takes drastic measures to show us that girls like sports too. They're at a slumber party. Yet instead of talking about boys and teachers, they're drinking beer and trying to remember which Dodgers scored the runs in last night's game. They even call their basketball coach to see if she knows! And she comes over with the answer! She finds a bloody mess, of course, but that was all a little weird. (I think the coach is a lesbian, but I won't go into the strange woman who was drilling a hole in her door to install a peep-hole.)
Now, do you want nudity? Well, sorry, I only write reviews. But while we're on the subject, there's plenty of it featured in this movie. Like I said, less than 2 minutes into the movie, you see Trish's breasts. Both the shower scene and a scene at the party have multiple breast shots. Then there's even one more for you when this girl's making out with her boyfriend in the garage. I started to think we'd have more nudity than kills. You know how I feel about that. (See Head of the Family.) But, no, my boy Russ came through and started drilling for me.
Overall, I liked this movie. It will actually keep you interested the whole time, which seems to be quite rare these days. Coming in at about 75 minutes in length, it knows its role. Show us the people who will be dying, kill them, and then end. And that's what happens.
There are some really good scenes. For example, the girl making out with her boyfriend in the garage leaves him for a minute. When she gets back, she turns his head to kiss him and the damn thing falls off! Another kill that we don't see, but still a great scene. Adding to it, the camera immediately cuts to strawberry daiquiris being mixed. Gross. Another great scene takes place at the end when the girls are fighting Russ. Valerie, who comes to the rescue, is swinging a machete and she chops off Russ's drill bit and then his hand! Nice! That won't stop Russ though...
If you're looking for something with a decent amount of kills, some good, cheesy music (they throw the melody for "Charge!" in towards the end), a fair amount of comedy, and a great psycho killer with a drill... Yup. This is it.
-- Coolio
