Not great, but for all it's (many, many) flaws I found myself quite enjoying it. I Don't know if I was just in a receptive mood, or if
last weeks monstrosity has lowered my expectations (or dulled my senses) enough to cope with anything, but I found myself ignoring certain aspects of this one and enjoy the ride.
The opening sequence is a Masked ball / 80's pool-side party, complete with a scarred pervert in the hedges (I say "scarred" he actually has a pot of silly putty blobbed all over one side of his face) watching people "make out". But he really hits the jackpot when the group stud engages in the most mutually verbally guided sex ever ("kiss me harder", "touch me there" etc.), not because he gets to watch, but because said man-bike is ordered to take his mask off (Mickey Mouse - Disney must love this!) allowing putty-features to pose as him.
Now, you may think I'm beings bit harsh calling him a man-bike for sleeping with one girl, but when or disfigured perve wanders into the party and immediately starts dancing with a girl, her reaction is basically "Oh, I though you were with [another girl], great - want to come back to my place?", he does and she fails to notice how silent he's being, on account that she's happy to have both sides of the conversation "I want you, and You want me too don't you, yes you do, I could tell", they're just about to bump uglies, when she knocks his mask off, and sees that it's not the guy she was after - oddly (!) she objects to this, and her screams are rewarded with a pair of scissors to the gut - repeatedly and unconvincingly.
Cut to 5 years later, and Scar-face's sister has come to pick him up from the asylum, the possibility of him having another 'Episode' is deemed unlikely, but she is told, never the less, to avoid upsetting situations, and in particular to 'never mention that night'.
So, attempted rape and a murder is 'an episode' now...
Anyway, on the way home on the train putty-features becomes slightly obsessed with some poor girl (hilariously, when the girl screams, blobby-chops' sisters' first question is "you didn't kill her did you?"
Over the next few scenes we are introduced to our (fairly sizeable) cast, all of whom either attend, run or own the 'International Youth-Club Boarding School of Langueges', which has newly opened in the privately owned complex of bungalows which houses the pool from the opening party. Our cast of characters consists of
- Miguel - The Aforementioned scared murderer / attempted rapist
- Manuela - Miguel's Sister
- Angela - Our obvious "Final Girl", remember the girl from the train? This is her, she also just happens to be attending the language school!
- Countess Maria - Wheelchair bound Aunt of Miguel and Manuela - she owns the entire bungalow complex and the mansion above it, and is vocal in her dislike of Manuela and her intention to leave everything to her nephew.
- Alvaro - Who, With Manuela, runs the school
- Antonio - School janitor and groundskeepers, known for being a hit in the sack, and not afraid to offer his services as a willing piece of meat. Make the Man-Bike from the pool party look like a modest prude.
- Bueno - Slightly retarded, bald grounds-staff member at the school
- Eva / Rita / Inga / probably more - Interchangeable blonde students of the school, nubile cannon fodder.
Our first death comes when the cantankerous Countess is woken by a blinding light, she begs for the light to be turned off, and it is - then someone sets her on fire (unconvincingly) with a flaming torch.
Which brings us to the first major plot-problem... The movie tries hard to keep us guessing not only who the killer is, but why, and who is 'in on it', but for the entire rest of the movie we will frequently see Manuella pushing her Aunt around in her wheelchair (always with her back to camera), and generally acting as though she is still alive (although she never speaks), so guessing her involvement is not the most challenging task...
We are told that Angela is staying in Bungalow 13, which has a bit of a reputation amongst the girls as it is the bungalow in which a girl was stabbed to death with scissors 5 years ago (that the murder was committed by the landowner's nephew apparently isn't known to them). Brilliantly / Awfully, although it is never mentioned on screen, Bungalow 13 still has the same furniture now, as a boarding room in a school, as it had then, as a private residence and murder-scene.
Angela has a bit of a rought time of it on her first day in the bungellow - first she catches Bueno perving through her window, then she (imagines she?) catches sight of Miguel in her mirror, then a looming figure approaches her door - luckily this traumatic time is brought to an when the figure turns out to be an underage door-to-door ceramic elephant seller... No, Really!
Would I lie to you?
At one point, Manuela is pottering around her room in the mansion in a see-through nightie when there is a knock at the door; it's her brother. At this point, I have written in my notes "He seems very relaxed chatting to his sister while her boobs are vis.... Ohhhh, Ewwwwww" As at this point, they start making out, while Miguel begs her to "love him again like [she] did before"... It is truly the most desturbing consentual (thankfully not quite) sex scene I have ever seen! Thankfully, she calls it off befor things get, well even worse, Remiding him that it would be wrong as people would judge them, she (rather stupidly) says to him that they could be together if they "Could just get rid of everyone arround [them]" doubletripplecringe!
Later, at the Campus "Disco Club", Antonio, dispite having every interchangeable blond in the place virtually begging him for sex, decides to walk Angela home. Literally walk her home. He doesn't even ask to come in!
Some time later, the killer stalks Angela in her room - and he has mad vanishing skills! I know ALL slasher villains have super stealth, but check this guy out:
Actually, I'm glad that clip contained musak - I'm quite certain the score on this one will have driven
Lisa nuts, containing as it does 2 themes; There's the one from the trailer (which is usally source music - playing over the radio, on whatever) and the one in the clip above, which for some reason puts me in mind of a bad cover of
G'n'R's version of "Live and Let Die".
Anyway, the knock at the door is one of the interchangeables, who comes over to borrow a sweater from Angela, but instead gets stabbed (from behind) through the tit - ouch! unfortunately for Angela, the body vanishes before she has time to tell anyone, and general consensus is that she imagined the whole thing.
Angela (perhaps understandably) does start to loose it at this point; she imagines that the language lab (remember those?) in her class is threatening her.
Later, she goes for a walk down by the harbour to look for her murdered friend (The harbour is stunning by the way) where she sees Manuela hasteling Antonio, and then nearly gets crushed by a falling rock - which she thinks is a matter for the police...
And so it continues, there a a couple more (fake looking) murders (including an "I'll be right back"), more scenes of Manuela wheeling around her (unmoving) aunt, Shots of Bueno being creepy and retarded, and a fun aside where Antonio "saves" Angela by cutting a Snake with some shears, but all she knows is that she turns around to see him holding up the bloody shears at her.
Eventually, 3 of the bodies turn up in Angela's bungalow, She is confronted by the masked killer, and rescued by Miguel, leaving the 2 to fight, she runs to the mansion where she is drugged, and the plot revealed.
In true slasher fashion, everyone present (but final girl) gets killed, just in time for the police to arrive.
As I saw, I quite enjoyed it, but now I come to describe the film, I can't for the life of me see why...
But there's enough potential here IMO to warrant a remake (I never got the point of remaking films which ether never had anything going for them - "Prom Night", or were already pretty much perfect "Nightmare on Elm Street" - lets remake the films with wasted potential!) - a bit more back story about what caused Miguel's "episode" in the first place could set him up as a much more sympathetic character (while at the same time developing the sister) and not actually showing us the Aunt's murder would help the mystery along no-end.
Over-all (like the first 2 films on our list) I can't openly recommend this one, but if it happens to be on, and you happen to have nothing to do, I've sat through worse (at least twice in the last 4 weeks).
Human Body Count: 7
Animal Body Count: 1
Boobs: 6 pairs
Most memorable death: Stabbed trough the boob.
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