The Mutilator

This film is many in a line of trash horror films. When I first read the back of the video box I laughed, six teenagers going on their summer vacation. Cliche? If you are a fan of rubbish horror films then you'll love this, the acting is so bad it's good. The characters begin to get on your nerves eventually with their pole up their backside style acting, and you begin to wish for them to get killed, which in turn makes the film even better as you egg on the killer, "go on ram a knife through his all American face...go on...go on...YES!!!" If you watch this film expecting Oscar winning performances then you'll be sorely disappointed, having said that, if you watch this for any kind of performance whatsoever you'll be disappointed. The violence is over the top and it's great. It's the only saving grace of the film. However, all this aside, if you don't expect too much, then you'll be rewarded.

...because nobody else wants to sit with it. This movie was BAD, and I don't mean it in the 'Man, that chick that beat you up and stole your Pez dispenser was BAD' kinda way. I mean it in the 'Man, that's BAD, a chick beat you up and stole your Pez dispenser!' kinda way. I tried to remember that 'The Mutilator' (originally called 'Fall Break') was made in '84 or '85 while I was watching it, but that didn't ease the pain much. Terrible acting, stupid lines, and death scenes that can't compete with the average Bazooka Joe comics. And what the hell was going on with Bill Hitchcock's character? Even twenty years ago Laurel and Hardy imitations were out of date, whose idea was it to throw that in? Especially pay attention to his actions after he knocks the books out of the cheerleader's arms when he's coming out of Hallock Hall. That was way more PAINFUL than any of the deaths I saw. Sorta reminds me of how I acted in high school... Just exactly how frightened can I be of a killer who spends quite a bit of his time asleep in a closet, clutching his battle axe like it was a teddy bear? In fact, had he been beating people to death with a teddy bear,I could have gotten in to that. But I knew this movie was bad before I bought it because sadly, I saw it in the theater when it originally came out. So why did I buy it?Mainly because it was made in the city I live in. And the kid, Trace Cooper, who plays the little boy that shot his mom was in my seventh grade class. I remember him passing out autographed pics from the movie, although I didn't get one. Perhaps I'm still bitter.

"What's this?" was the first thing I thought. A movie with an awesome cover, and now this. One of the worst movies ever made. A dull story, poor actors (one of the actors looks like George Michael) and not very good effects. There are some really nice scenes in the end..but that doesn't make this movie a good one. yuck.

source: The Mutilator

Trailer—The Mutilator

The Mutilator

Stop me if you've heard this one. A group of horny teenagers head out to a remote location to have some fun, but they begin to realize that something is terribly wrong as one by one they begin to disappear, picked off by a deranged killer bent on slaughtering them all! Yes, that's the basic plot of the vast majority of slasher movies and Fall Break/The Mutilator is perhaps the most generic example in the history of horror. That's not a criticism per se, there's something to be said for a film that is the ultimate condensation of a genre. You go in knowing exactly what to expect and you get precisely that, with no surprises, deviations, or winking self-aware subversions. If you've seen other slasher films there's nothing new for you here, but this is something that can easily be pulled out for your less genre-savvy friends for some mild scares and modest blood.

Years after he accidentally shot his mother to death, a college kid and his friends go to this family's beach house for fall break and are stalked by his psychotic father who never got over his son's one big mistake. If you were to look up "80's slasher film" in a textbook, I wouldn't be surprised if The Mutilator was the first to come up. It meets all the requirements and cliches people think about when they think 80's slasher film. The young victims are reasonably attractive and poorly developed, the film is low budget, there's nudity, tons of gore, and a fairly short run time. If you don't take it too seriously, you could end up enjoying it.

THE MUTILATOR is one of the lesser slasher flicks of the 1980s that I've watched, a film which singularly fails to offer up anything that's new in the genre. We get a bunch of annoying teenagers hanging out in a dilapidated old beach house and finding themselves preyed upon by a maniac with a rather silly and unbelievable back story that drove him over the edge. The dialogue is mundane, the performances from the unknown cast are anything but invigorating, and the only thing this film really has to offer is a series of sequences featuring some sloppy and occasionally imaginative gore effects. Our characters are chainsawed, pitchforked, and generally mutilated before death as per the title. Sadly there's very little in the way of suspense to go with the bloodshed, leaving this an unfulfilling experience even for horror fans.

A young boy accidentally kills his mother while playing with his father's gun. Distraught, his father has a break from reality and, years later, the young man takes his college buddies to his family's beach house for a little fall break fun and his father shows up, still angry at what his son did, so he decides to punish him and his friends by going on a bloody rampage. You have to put together a lot of pieces yourself as you watch The Mutilator. Where has this nutty father been all this time? Why did he pick now to go on a killing spree? This movie isn't one for nuanced character development and deep psychological insight, but the murder scenes are a gory delight and a few scenes crackle with some suspense.