The Mutilator
While a mother (Pamela Weddle Cooper) is preparing a birthday cake for her husband in her home, her young son (Trace Cooper) in another room moves to his father's gun cabinet, having intentions to clean the rifles as a birthday surprise. Just as he's testing one of them out, the rifle releases a shot and the boy's mother falls dead in the other room. Running to his mother, the boy's father (Jack Chatham) soon comes home in a rage. Taking a rifle and dragging his dead wife into another room, the man sits in a chair, drinking alcohol and at one point even offering the glass to the corpse. The boy looks on nearby as police and ambulance sirens ring throughout the background.
Move to a considerable amount of passed time, where the boy (Ed played by Matt Mitler), now grown up, is sitting in a bar with some of his college friends. Soon, Ed gets a strange phone call from his father, whose relationship with his son remains bitter due to the past accident. For some reason, Ed's father wants him to come to his condo and help him clean up on Fall Break. Refusing the offer, Ed's friends think up the brilliant idea of staying at the condo on Fall Break for a little bit of R & R. After much convincing, Ed finally agrees and says, "I have a bad feeling about this...," while he doesn't know how true he actually is.
Cue the horribly cheesy but catchy main theme (hey, it's 1983!), which is entitled Fall Break, the film's alternate title. The friends drive throughout the credits until they finally reach the condo. Of course, most of them are sex-crazed and have one-track minds while one couple, Ed and his girlfriend Pam (Ruth Martinez), remain rather tame, labeling them as potential survivors for the film.
Lurking beneath the house in a garage storage shed is Ed's father who awakes from his sleep when the friends enter the garage. He immediately detects the presence of others and becomes enraged as we're shown his reactions while he holds onto a battleaxe. Suddenly, he exits the garage, his only intent to stalk and kill the unexpecting group of friends.
Bizarre situations start to occur and the college students become very uneasy and soon come to face with something worse than final exams as the maniacal father takes revenge into his own hands, brutally butchering anyone who gets in his way...
I know this movie has received a fair amount of bad reviews, and there's good reason, but the cheesiness and onscreen mayhem served as an entertaining time for myself. Of course, the main theme is one of the highlights of the film and will unfortunately be embedded in your mind after your first viewing. Also, director Buddy Cooper obviously used some of his relatives for the production.
Filmed in , most of the main characters have country accents, which is pretty rare for a horror movie. The movie exists in various versions, such as the US Vestron Video R-rated and unrated editions and the UK DVD that boasts to be the "Extreme Version." There are some very brutal death scenes, such as decapitations, impalings, hookings, but they're all ruined by the film's horrid lighting and rough cuts. Still though, you will cringe with the pain inflicted onscreen as the killer knocks off everyone...
A film not for everyone unless you're an avid horror viewer. The gore and main theme were the attractions for me, along with the many tense stalking scenes, one involving a hide-and-seek game and another with the killer right on top of a car holding terrorized college goers. Definitely give this one a chance for many laughs and some pretty effective and creepy scenes. aka Fall Break
Listen to a sample of Fall Break
