Night Killer

Year 1990 is possibly the most crucial year in B-movie cinematography - it brought us the pinnacle trash works Troll 2 and Night Killer and behind both stands the crowned king of cinematic trash sitting on a throne of feces, whose revered name is Claudio Fragasso. His contribution is absolutely crucial and undisputed for lovers and seekers of cinematic obscurities. The best B-movie creators are characterized by having their own specific visions and concepts, casting below-average actors from whom they squeeze incredibly bad, yet remarkable, acting performances, creating enchantingly bad special effects, sometimes quite impressive, but often pitiful gore effects, and above all taking themselves terribly seriously and standing by the fact that they create quality filmmaking - so the most important factor is zero self-reflection. In Italy, there are enough quality directors who were able to shoot B-movies splendidly - sometimes almost artistically polished (namely Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci or Sergio Martino). Fragasso definitely does not belong in this category. Claudio is a wretched director, who has interesting ideas but cannot process them seriously, which he himself does not realize and believes that what he does has great artistic value and clearly expressed it in many interviews. Although his films are worth seeing, the intention misses the mark. For the average consumer, Fragasso's films are absolutely indigestible, but for seekers of movie trash, his filmography is a goldmine. In his film Night Killer, nothing works at all, and yet it is a completely fascinating spectacle, where you will be staring in disbelief throughout, wondering what the hell you are watching and if it seems real to you. The film is supremely slimy, twisted, and perverse, reaching dizzying heights that many other films have not come close to. Fragasso wanted to create an unpleasant psychological horror, which he succeeded in to some extent, but again not as he intended - moreover, the studio intervened in the film after completion and hired his former collaborator Bruno Mattei, who shot several murderous sequences for the film to bring it closer to a slasher with typically Italian giallo elements rather than the originally intended psychothriller. Thanks to this intervention, an even bigger debacle ensued. The main killer in the film wears a mask reminiscent of Freddy Krueger - coincidence? He uses a glove with blades on the fingertips as his weapon - so yes, the film blatantly parasitizes on A Nightmare on Elm Street. Moreover, it is called Non aprite quella porta 3 in Italian - under this title, the film came out in Italy as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre -, so in this case, the studio tried to parasitize on another famous horror series, whose real third part happened to be released in the same year. All these things cleverly raise the film to a supernatural level of crapitude rarely seen. Besides, even though the film is named Night Killer, there is not a single exterior scene set at night in it - at most, it can be assumed that a few scenes take place in the evening, but all these scenes take place indoors and it cannot be discerned if it is really dark. Night Killer would probably objectively deserve to be garbage, but I cannot grant it. As a movie dung purveyor, this is exactly what I am looking for, so if you can't stand trash, take my rating with a big grain of salt. I give it 4 stars for the huge level of unintentional absurdity. Night Killer is such a bad movie, it's actually amazing. It is a great pity that everyone only talks about Troll 2 and Night Killer languishes in the pit of oblivion. This deserves to be synonymous with movie badness and proudly stand alongside Troll 2, creating a magnificently trashy double feature of crap-filled 1990. BTW: This could potentially be a spoiler, but for the curious, I will hint that the murderer is the worst actor in the whole film, which might not be so easily readable since the film is full of appalling acting performances, but still, his acting stands out specifically and you will be able to fully enjoy it during the final revelation. (01/11/2020) (less) (more)