Nikos The Impaler

Nikos The Impaler

Everyone knows a crazy, vindictive freak that will stop at nothing to get revenge - I know I sure do! But none are so hell-bent on laying down a blanket of angry kill than Nikos The Impaler, a slow-moving baddie from Andreas Schnaas's movie of the same name. Nikos supposedly pre-dates Vlad Tepes (and if you don't know who the Sewer is talking about, click on back to your AOL home-page, baby) and also outdoes the historical impaler in the slaughter department. It's why Nikos gets his face ripped off by some angry Mullahs, and why - when some idiots in New York decide to mount an art exhibition titled 'The Horrors of Romania' - he comes back for a little more killing.

Yes, Video Sewer is duty bound to save you the trouble of watching an Andreas Schnaas movie. Regulars to the Sewer should know Schnaas, German purveyor of low-budget gore-stravaganzas like Zombie Doom and Violent Shit. Schnaas makes no bones about his mission; layer on the cheap guts for the 17 teenage German boys who keep his career afloat. Corny and exuberant gore, forget about plot, acting, or even rudimentary movie-making skills, is the be-all and end-all, making Schnaas's movies either fascinatingly tedious or great for drinking games.

For Nikos, the stakes are raised; Schnaas takes on New York, tries his hand at using an ensemble cast, and even (apparently) uses a helicopter for a few dynamic overhead city shots. Other than those cool helicopter shots, things go poorly - as expected. The acting is alternately hammy, amateurish and based on the one-take ethos, while edits, coverage shots, and most other tenets of film-making continuity are seemingly ignored or abused. To wit: it sucks. But on the other hand, you've got to love Schnaas. If you want the gore, he gives it: beheadings, dismemberment, impaling, bisection, faces ripped off, cut off and smashed into walls, bodies blown up, chopped in two by exercise equipment, or disemboweled by fist. And Nikos kills people, too. Since the gore is on the affordable side, none of the kills are too grueling or disturbing, they're more in the line of the slap-your-head-and-guffaw variety, which is Schnaas's brilliance.

Sadly, Schnaas has traded some of his earlier lingering shots of splat for quick cuts (literally and figuratively) that both conceal the cheapness of the effects and cheat viewers out of some shameful thrills. We ain't watching this crud for the storyline, dude. For this sin, and for including a cameo by Lloyd Kaufman, and an appearance by Adolph Hitler, (some things Germans probably should just let rest) and for the grating heavy metal/techno soundtrack, and for the Darien Caine shower scene (expanded to a mind-numbing seven minutes in the extras - not good, trust me) and the other too-numerous sins, Schnaas gets to take two giant steps backward. Too bad, because every now and then the gore hound needs blood, and needs to see the crazy guy get obsessive, random revenge. But this lumbering, armored dolt (essayed by Schnaas himself) only inspires fear that Nikos The Impaler will never end.