Night Killer (1990)
8/10
I'm rating this on a "So Bad It Is Good" scale...
16 February 2020
... because as cinema with a coherent plot and convincing acting it fails completely. Let me also say that Chris Stuckmann's video review of this is what caused me to watch it ,and I can't unhear what he said, so I may repeat points that he made.

This thing had to initially be a porno film that the backers/makers decided would make more money as a horror film in the tradition of Cannon Films. There were scenes added by the backers to give the film more gore, although overall, in the gore department, it is nothing severe.

This film is about a homicidal maniac who dons a Freddy Krueger like mask and just one claw on one hand - in the tradition of Michael Jackson??? - and goes about killing random women by...punching a hole through them? Help me out here medical students, but wouldn't things like muscle and internal organs and a spinal cord make that rough going for a flimsy plastic claw? Plus the "Night Killer" is definitely a day killer. Not once did I see him strike at night. But then those kind of scenes cost money.

So the film opens on some kind of dance routine rehearsal for a show that is being overseen by a woman who initially has perfect diction but then in just one scene transitions to having some kind of speech impediment that makes her incomprehensible. So the Night Killer does some killing in and around the rehearsal involving characters we know nothing about and then the film just leaves that behind to never return there again.

The film then moves on to Melanie Beck, a mid 30s author (??? her frantic bra-less typing is never explained) who ends up being Night Killer's next victim. Except she lives. But the trauma causes her to forget everything about what happened including what the attacker looked like and the details of her own life including her name and the fact that she has a daughter. If you want to know what happens, then watch and find out.

This thing is just a treasure trove of bad inexplicable filmmaking, from the decision to score a man walking a child to school with 80s hardcore porn music, to scoring the suspense scenes with soft core porn music, to Melanie Beck deciding to get into a conversation and argument with an obscene phone caller, to the Night Killer, when he is shown from the back in street clothes, having the wrong build and hair color to be the person who turns out to be the actual culprit. Oh, and then there is Melanie's daughter who is the world's tallest pre-pubescent child who is constantly being referred to as "just a baby".

If you are looking for quality horror, don't watch this. But if you are just in the mood to say "What the...???" then you are in the right place.
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