Must See Movie...

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

How sad is this?

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

In Amsterdam's Red Light District, a young prostitute catches a taxi home and is almost raped by the driver, but she manages to fight him off and flee before any harm comes to her. Sadly for her, there's also a murderous lunatic on the loose, who stabs the poor lady to death and drags her bloody corpse into the nearby canal. Her body is discovered in gruesome fashion as her lifeless body is displayed on a bridge, only be smeared across the top of a boat filled with screaming tourists. As the body count rises, gruff detective Eric Visser (Huub Stapel) is assigned to the case, but this killer proves particularly difficult to catch. As well as possessing a high level of intelligence, the masked psychopath also uses the many canals running throughout the city for shelter. With pressure building from his bosses, he must work fast before the killer strikes again.Almost like a warped advert for tourists, Amsterdamned portrays the great city in all its beauty. We see everything the city has to offer; the canals, the Rembrandt paintings, the breweries, and of course, the Red Light District. If it didn't include the many brutal murders, this could have been made by the tourist board. The city provides the backdrop for a string of stylishly-executed slayings, including a beheading by moonlight and a knife through a dinghy you won't soon forget. It also finds the time (and the budget) for a terrific, outlandish speed boat chase between the killer and Visser (put together by the brilliantly-named Dickey Beer), which pulls out all the stops and puts many films with much bigger budgets completely to shame. Infused with a giallo-esque sensibility, director Dick Maas makes an entire city feel somehow claustrophobic.At almost two hours, Amsterdamned also long outstays its welcome, padding the film out with unnecessary sub-plots that seem to either disappear (Visser's relationship with his teenage daughter is given a lot of focus of early on, but then the film seems to forget about her completely) or fizzle out into nothing. While these moments are often filled with amusing dialogue (the strange sense of humour will likely have you laughing at loud on occasion), they also deliver long stretches of boredom. However, with its silly title and by-the- numbers premise, Amsterdamned is far better than it has any right to be, and will certainly surprise anyone going in expecting a routine slasher picture. Trimmed of some fat, this could have been something to write home about, but this is still an entertaining and creative little Euro-horror.

If you've seen Dick Maas' previous horror outing - THE LIFT - then you pretty much know what to expect with this kooky crime thriller mixing police investigation with slasher overtones. There's a certain basic artistry in some of the more outlandish scenes - probably the most memorable scene comes when a tour boat, full of gossiping passengers and unruly children runs into a corpse swinging from the bridge; typically, this would be a brief shock scene quickly cutting away to an autopsy or something. But not here - instead, Maas follows the boat through the tunnel as the corpse slides along the glass roof, leaving a trail of blood and gristle behind it. It's an audacious, inventive and highly imaginative moment in what otherwise amounts to a fairly typical thriller.The ingredients here are ordinary and the film has something for everyone : sex and gore (tame), romance, action, stunts, and a lone hero, a rogue cop whose obscure methods find him at odds with his superiors. The cop in question is played by Maas' favourite leading man Huub Stapel, after he did so well in THE LIFT. Stapel fits into the role of "maverick cop" pretty well here and looks the part with his unshaven face and tired leather jacket. As for the supporting actors and actresses... well, nobody really shines in their role but nobody is wooden either. The dialogue is a little difficult to comprehend sometimes due to the culture gap and the heavy accents on display, but all round it's a good effort on everybody's behalf.Fans would be wise to check this film out as it's a unique contribution which really draws out the best scenery in Holland. Basically, it's just so different what with the setting and different lifestyles that watching becomes a way of learning about the Dutch. Personally, I myself find the long canals of Amsterdam very interesting to look out and the film really makes use of them in some tense chase moments. The best part of the film is a prolonged speedboat chase which packs in a ton of stunts and could easy fit into a James Bond film without looking out of place - it's that polished.You're kept guessing as to the identity of the killer throughout and there are plenty of clues and red herrings to chew on. The only thing I think let this film down was the ending, which makes you feel sorry for the killer and gives him a personality - realistic, yes, and a good twist, but not that exciting. Basically, if the idea of a killer stalking the canals of Amsterdam in the wetsuit being chased by policemen who follows his bubbles sounds like your sort of thing, then get this film as that's exactly what it's about and it doesn't disappoint - it may not be a brilliant film, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and was kept interested all the way until the end anyway. Oh yes, and clever title, too.

A mysterious diver hiding in Amsterdam's canal system embarks on a rampage of gruesome murders. Terrifying city officials and leaving few clues for the city's best detective, who doesn't suspect that both his new girlfriend and twelve-year-old daughter may be closer than he is to finding the killer..An absolute hoot from beginning to end, the fact that this film is so full of humour, despite the bad script, makes this a curious watch.It's a typical eighties film, we start with the hero, sporting a hangover and a mullet whilst in the bath, getting alerted to the first murder, only to apprehend a robber in the bakery and then giving a payoff one-liner.He finds the first body, gives a one-liner and starts his investigation proper. We are given a few red herrings along the way as to who the murderer is, but the story and the narrative, make it a little hard to understand what is going on.It's part slasher, part horror, part crime, part comedy, and it all works in a random way.The cast are good, but a lot of the support tend to overact, and the main speed boat chase isn't just the longest one in history, it's the single funniest action set piece i have ever seen.Throw in a random sex scene, with some extremely questionable noise coming from the fairer of the two, Riffs on Jaws and Friday the 13th, then you have one weird entertaining film.It's the best Dutch film about a disfigured deep sea diving killer in the world ever.

Slashers were everywhere in the 80's, so they might as well come from Holland. The variation of the day is that this killer is mostly active in and around water, but then again that's just throwing Jaws in the mix. Rather than having the standard teenagers trying to convince us that they in fact are scared, the padding here is a detective story. Our hero spends ages trying to find out who killed all these people(all of them with a knife, so nothing to see there), and then it is revealed it was someone we didn't know anyway. Exciting times. The most brilliant scene, and I don't negotiate about that, is the boat chase. I could watch that all day. I couldn't believe how welcome it was between the monotonous slashing. You tend to wonder about the motive for this killer, but all is resolved. Toxic waste. Fair enough. This slasher is just utterly mediocre.