By sword. By pick. By axe. Bye bye. - The Mutilator
Written: Nov 02 '09 (Updated Nov 03 '09)
Product Rating:
Pros: some very good gore
Cons: bad acting, predictable... it's an '80s slasher, after all
The Bottom Line: Those who are willing to content themselves with old VHS copies or ripped-to-DVD transfers will find much to love about The Mutilator.
The Mutilator is quite good for a 1980s slasher. It suffers from poor acting and laughably bad moments, but it also has some surprisingly graphic gore.
The plot is the standard teens go to the beach and get slaughtered deal, with a few variations. When he was a young boy, Ed decided to surprise his father by meticulously cleaning all of his pa's rifles. Somehow, this brilliant plan took a tragic turn, resulting in Ed accidentally shooting and killing his mother. At that moment, Ed looks out the window and sees his father's car pulling up. Daddy is understandably p!ssed, and Ed flees, leaving his father to crack open a bottle of alcohol and have a drink, but not before pouring some down his dead wife's throat. It sounds morbid and disturbing, but it plays out differently, as the entire sequence takes place without any dialogue, save for Ed's cries of "Mama, mama," which sound overdubbed anyway. Watching Ed's father slowly move in towards his son, then shove him without a single word, comes across as goofy rather than menacing.
No matter, though, for the film jumps to a few years later, when Ed and his friends are trying to figure out how to enliven their boring fall break. Ed gets a call from his father asking him to come clean out the old beach house, but he's reluctant to do so since he and his father have never gotten along since the unfortunate incident. Caving to peer pressure, Ed relents, and the group head to the beach for some fun and sun. When they get there, they discover daddy's battleaxe is missing, then some of the kids start disappearing. Is Ed's father finally having his bloody revenge? Has Ed snapped and decided to murder his friends? Or is someone else the mutilator?
The identity of the killer is painfully obvious from the get-go; just from reading this review, it should be easy to guess. But The Mutilator's strength was never intended to be in its mystery. Where it does succeed is in its death scenes. There are a couple of really nasty ones here, including an oversized fish hook going into a sensitive body part and a truly hilarious death by chainsaw that has to be seen to be believed. Each kill is unlike the others, employing a different weapon and method of attack, but all are original and twisted.
As is typical in movies of this type, the acting is terrible. Morey Lampley as Mike is the worst offender, contributing one of the most ludicrously overacted performances I've seen in a good while. The script is full of plot holes and inconsistencies, and there are many laugh-out-loud moments: Ed's friend picks up a framed picture of a mutilated body; Ed explains, "My dad ran over him when he was jet-skiing," this explanation is accepted, and no more questions are asked. Also adding to the movie's charm is the cheesy, upbeat theme song.
In its uncut version The Mutilator is a fun, forgotten '80s slasher, which is unfortunately not yet available on DVD. Those who are willing to content themselves with old VHS copies or ripped-to-DVD transfers will find much to love about The Mutilator.
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