AMSTERDAMNED

  1988/18/109m

“Be glad you’re afraid… It means you’re still alive.”

Director/Writer: Dick Maas / Cast: Huub Stapel, Monique van de Ven, Serge-Henri Valcke, Hidde Maas, Wim Zomer, Tannake Hartzuiker, Tatum Dagelet, Edwin Bakker.

Body Count: 8

Laughter Lines: “No more money means no more pussy – and I won’t go Dutch!”

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Who could hate the city of Amsterdam? Canals, flowers, the Heineken museum, hookers sticking their asses up against the glass of their windows, pot-laced brownies, uh… Anne Frank’s house?

Although the end reaches for new depths of desperation to avoid a resolution you can see coming miles away through fields of tulips and windmills, this Dutch police thriller-cum-slasher movie is entertaining anyway. When a series of brutal slaughters plagues the canals of Amsterdam, your standard single-father, sleeps-late, has tough daughter, cop is assigned to finding the maniac.

That’s it for plot, director Maas tosses in plenty of action and some pretty good set-ups but can’t escape heavy influence from either A Nightmare On Elm Street or Jaws (!). Good scenes include a prostitute’s corpse hanging from the underside of a bridge that a glass-topped tourist barge ventures beneath, and a James Bond-like boat chase through the canals.

Absorb that dreadful Euro-pop song that graces the credits sequence as well, possibly the scariest thing in the film.

Blurb-of-interest: Serge-Henri Valcke was later in Slaughter Night (SL8 N8).