Sexy Killer
Director: Miguel Marti
Year 2008
Wow! This film is off of its rocker and that's a very good thing indeed. Sexy Killer is an abrasive hybrid of horror goodness brought to us from Spain, that delves into so many sub genres that it creates something totally unique, making for a quite entertainingly monstrous film. The film is centered around a young and beautiful college girl named Barbara, who has a pension for killing anything with a pulse. Barbara is played by the strangely alluring Macarena Gomez, who you might remember in Stuart Gordon's aquatic fright film Dagon. In that film she played an entrancing fish woman named Uxia Cambarro, who vied for the attention of the main character as he struggled to stay alive while fighting off deformed fish people. Check it out, it's one of the best H.P. Lovecraft based films out there and highly entertaining. In Sexy Killer, Macarena is front and center, allowing the audience to revel in her over the top portrayal of this serial killer with great fashion sense.
How dare you break wind before me!
This movie is so random and kinetic, that it's hard not to be swept up in the moment. The film skips around from flashback, to the future, then to the past, and then into a fantasy world that all plays out by the over imagination of Barbara and her sick mind. This film is so vibrant with personality that it might just make your head spin. It's definitely in a world of its own and one that unabashedly goes all out to separate itself from the rest of the pack. You can never peg which direction the film is going to go, so you learn to just sit back and enjoy the wild ride as we dip from horror to comedy and to basically everything in between. Sexy Killer is a cornucopia of movie tones which is best compared to an out of control child diagnosed with ADD.
Getting to know the inner killer.
I mentioned the fantasy world that Barbara delves into, but I don't think you get the full impact of what this topsy turvy realm is really like. We are given flashbacks of the Sexy Killer's life, all narrated by Barbara herself, telling us how she came to be a serial killer and why she loves doing the things she does so much. It's interesting as all hell and the energy in this exposition is through the roof fantastic. Then we are thrown deep into her most wild thoughts as we're treated to a bizarre musical number that is best described as a Barbie dream house nightmare, filled with bright colors and fake hairdos. You might ask yourself, what the hell am I watching, but if you stick with the silliness you'll find that this movie's charm begins to rub off on you and you can't help but smile at the absurdity of it all.
Check out this sweet dance number.
Things can get a little weird in this film.
There is so much going on in this film and so many genres that Sexy Killer touches upon that it can get quite confusing in all of the clutter, but in its madness is the central theme that centers all slashers, a high body count. We are given so many cliches of the slasher genre that you might write it off as a spanish version of the Scary Movie franchise, but that would be a dreadful and false thought, because this film is miles above that tired series of films. Sexy Killer has a heart and soul that propels its material into the stratosphere, never settling to stop the narrative for a stupid joke that takes you out of the film and reminds you that you're sitting and watching a montage of horror movie references. Instead, Sexy Killer relies on its unstoppable and unyielding energy to propel the narrative forward as the story twists and turns, following the shining star of Barbara's explosive ego.
How convenient. All of the victims lined up in a neat row.
For most of the film, we are lost in Barbara's fantasy world, where we're never sure if it's reality or a fabrication of her warped mind. This colorful reality is over abundant and never spares on the flare of presenting an eye popping scene that fleshes out just how truly masochistic Barbara really is. She stops the proceedings to show us how to properly kill your victim and she does this in a demented infomercial type way. It's wild and unique and never slows down with its abrasive attitude and flamboyant gusto. The tongue and cheek nature of the film is a breath of fresh air, especially when the story becomes playfully dark, biting off the tongue and splitting the cheek with its nonchalant abuse of violent tendencies and its all encompassing revel in its lust for blood.
Macarena, showing us the proper way to commit a murder.
Oh the beautiful colors. There is never a dull moment in this film. Even when we are stuck in the real world, the look of the film seems to pop with a kaleidoscope lens, refusing to fall into a bland refuse of mediocrity and neglect. There is a life in this film that I've never witnessed before in a horror film, let alone a slasher flick. The only film that has come close in unbridled absurdity is Mary Harron's American Psycho, but that movie only matches the tone of Sexy Killer. Imagine if you will, the over the top nature of American Psycho, but infuse that with the colors of an acid trip and then you would have Sexy Killer. It's really in a league of its own and one that I don't think will ever have company anytime soon. They broke the mold when they created this looney gem.
Ash would call this shot, Groovy!
Now on to the killings, because you can't have a slasher movie without a bunch of dead bodies hitting the floor. In Sexy Killer, we have our fair share of brutal murders, so much so that we even have dead bodies taking out living people as they're thrown out three story windows. Barbara deals death like other people take shits, casually and without concern. She treats it as a natural extension of herself and never thinks twice about morality or consequences. This kind of anti hero would traditionally be wearing a mask and be given little to no back story, but with Barbara's character she straight up tells us her history and the reasoning behind her blood lust. It's a flip side of a totally different coin if you compare her to the Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers of the world. This honesty about the monstrous things that she has done, is quite charming and adds to the overall personality of the film.
Damn, he must have a splitting headache. Yuk Yuk.
Like all good slashers, Barbara likes to play with her intended prey, often setting up elaborate artistically morbid statues formed by the dead bodies of her previous victims, for them to stumble upon. This is the typical M. O. of slasherdom, but Macarena Gomez puts so much energy in her wild eyed killer that she really makes it her own, evoking thoughts that no one else could have pulled off this character with such pizzaz and unfaltering heart. We see shades of Mr. Voorhees in Barbara's killer, as one of the victims hides in a sacred cave that is littered with the bodies of Barbara's latest kills, all posed in provocative and religious poses. It's a great show of respect for the icons that have come before her and a respectful display of admiration for their stupendous work.
He was dying for a role in this movie. Double Yuk Yuk.
The really special parts in this film, happen when Barbara's character speaks to the audience, describing what she is doing and even asking advice on how to execute the final death blow. It's silly and the breaking of the illusion, would in other movies, take you out of the film right away, but for some reason it works in this film and it fits perfectly with the style that has already been presented to us since the opening credits. It's outrageous, whimsical, and down right absurd, but it works on so many levels and is pushed in our face so many times that it becomes second nature and becomes just another added benefit of following this larger then life persona that Barbara carries on her sleeve.
How about a little off the top?
You would think that in a comedy, the violence would be taken down a notch, but when the shit hits the fan in this film, it really hits the fan. Barbara holds back for nothing, plunging a hook into the back of one of her victims and pulling him across the room, leaving a nasty blood trail as his body struggles and flails, in vein for survival. It's gruesome and can shock you after viewing some light hearted scenes and clever dialogue to then be abruptly presented with a visceral image of unapologetic murder. It's a violent contrast and I love it.
Quit hanging around and get back to work.
Now if this film wasn't unique enough, the filmmakers go for broke and offer a new twist to this wild tale. They decide to throw zombies into the mix, and through a conventional plot in the middle of the film, all of Barbara's previous victims have now been drastically brought into the world of the living and are looking for a little revenge on the person that brought them their untimely death. The movie switches gears and we're suddenly brought back to that special moment in Fred Dekker's Night of the Creeps, when Tom Atkins tells the sorority girls that, "I've got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is that your dates are here. The bad news is their dead."
Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.
With the zombies on the loose, we are given some amazingly iconic shots of some zombie goodness that really goes above and beyond the normal comedy undead film. Sexy Killer gives tremendous respect to the concept of the zombie, and this delicate mutual understanding can be closely compared to the loving tributes of Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead. These zombies are scary and viscous as all hell, wanting to do nothing but rip out your throat and call it a death. I was surprised at how authentic the effects were and how truly grotesque the idea is of walking corpses coming to life. They really did an amazing job with the zombie sequences and never used the concept as a comedy crutch, poking fun at the zombie genre, and instead focused on a more loving tribute that held fast to the conventions that make dead films what they are.
The salesmen in this neighborhood are real assholes.
Of course we're given a solid butt kicking ending that piles on the gore and blood as our seriously disturbed heroine proceeds to re-kill her victims all over again in fantastically over the top fashion. There's nothing that's as insanely gory as Peter Jackson's zombie opus Dead Alive, but it does impress and leaves a satisfying grin on your face that you're sure not to get ride of long after the credits dissipate in your mind. Sexy Killer is just a well made slasher that adds so many elements to it that it becomes something else entirely. They've combined elements of comedies, love stories, zombie flicks, science fiction fodder, and crammed it all into a nice and unique slasher build, that really makes a name for itself in both presentation and unparalleled energetic fun.
Bring it on bitches!
Sexy Killer is something that you've never seen before and probably never will again when it comes to a slasher film. The stars seemed to have aligned when this film was constructed, because all of the elements work perfectly together and blend into the most completely beautiful mess that I've ever seen. This could have easily of been a wash out for the fact that it has so many intricate and conflicting parts in this obese horror machine, but the weight of all of these concepts never hinders its ability to tell an entertaining and compellingly amusing story about a woman who's off her rocker and in a world of her own. Sexy Killer has to be seen to be believed and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to see something different that truly walks to a beat of a different and demented drummer.
4 out of 5 stars The Most Unique Slasher on the Face of the Planet!
