A series of murders in Amsterdam have the tourist screaming, cops baffled and the public scared. The murderer has left bodies hanging from bridges, stuck in boats and even delivered a head. No one is more eager for a swift solution than Eric Visser, a detective with the Dutch police. He is getting pressure from all sides to swiftly solve the murders and return everything back to the happy drug party, beer swelling status quo. The problem is that the killer is using the canals and breathing equipment to avoid being seen and being caught. Visser hunts but only finds dead bodies…until that is the killer makes a mistake…
Sending up a genre is hard to do. You have to know the subject inside and out. You need to know its conventions and its components. This is hard to do. Making it so the balance still makes it feel like a legitamate version of the genre for non Film studied types, is near impossible. Well here we have the film that has successfully achieved this. It is intellegent, bold and very well constructed. The use of convention and subversion is excellent in its construction. The killer convention both in visual motifs, camera operations and compositions is stand out. Visual riffs of Hitchcock, Argento and even Bava is hard to pull off. The script has great tonals and the comical execution is so good as to make the audience both laugh and also gripped with tensional relief. I have to give this film a standing ovation for both Maas (the director) and the cast, who have the gauge of and grasp of the subject matter.
So Shameless have made a great film watchable again. Their is some issues with the disc (it has nothing extra to it) but Shameless have brought a great film to the surface and made it a cut above…
– English audio & Dutch Audio with English Subtitles
– Exclusive Interview with Director Dick Maas
– Dutch and English Theatrical Trailer
– Shameless Trailer park