Wonderful Movie

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Absolutely Fantastic

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Obviously, Italian director Ruggero Deodato was trying to get a piece of that successful "Friday The 13th" cake with this film. Let me mention right away that this movie indeed is worth seeing for the pretty gory deaths and the (lots of) female (and even male) nudity featured in it. Other than that, there is no reason to watch it. A bunch of stupid teenage characters with absolutely no background gets slaughtered in the woods. The legend goes that an old Indian Shamhain roams the woods. Naturally, it's a dude in a wrinkly mask. When you learn who the killer is near the end, and especially why he turned onto a killing spree (oooh, it's trauma-time once again!), I guarantee you will laugh. Charles Napier has absolutely nothing to do in this flick, except shagging Mimsy Farmer, who's on her terms cheating on David Hess, who himself is so obsessed over that Shamhain figure that I wondered why he didn't try to make love to it. When all is over and done with, the movie presents you its final freeze-frame shock-moment. That one made my day! An 80's slasher without that final frozen shock-shot simply isn't a true 80's slasher. Deodato at least learned that lesson.

you didn't miss much.By the numbers slash and stalk affair. You neither care that these people die or how, to be quite honest. No, I tell a lie, these people get offed in whichever way Deodato thought best, and then their "friends" get on with their long weekend, as if nothing ever happened. That in itself is quite amusing.Aside from Claudio Simonetti's soundtrack, which is quite intriguing, and the location, which is very pretty, but not used to its fullest extent (proving Deodato really is just a hack who should've been collecting his pension cheque), this film simply adds to the the mid to late 80s horror industry decline.You've seen it all before and probably better too. Go watch Friday the 13th Part II again, if you feel the need for backwoods horror, or pick up Madman if you haven't seen it, or even Tony Maylam's The Burning. All are far superior backwoods horror films, with similarly effective soundtracks and much spookier atmosphere.

As a young boy, Ben witnesses the deaths of two lovers at the hands of a strange knife-wielding Indian shaman who lives in the woods surrounding his parents camping ground; fifteen years later, Ben (Nicola Farron)—now a soldier—hitches a lift home with a group of teens who are on their way to enjoy the great outdoors. He invites his new found friends to set up camp at his parents' place, unaware that his father (David Hess) has booby-trapped the land in an attempt to trap the shaman, who he believes is still lurking somewhere in the wilds, waiting to kill again.Body Count, by Cannibal Holocaust director Ruggero Deodato, is a rather formulaic slasher that offers little new to a genre already flooded by Friday the 13th clones, but still manages to be quite fun, thanks to it's silly plot, some effective scares, a touch of reasonable gore, and lots of gratuitous nekkidness from a bevy of beautiful girls (and, unfortunately, also from an annoying fat guy!).One by one, the vacationing 'kids' wander off (more often than not, to take a shower in a run down shack in the middle of nowhere) only to be sliced and diced in a variety of gruesome ways. Meanwhile, a subplot about Ben's adulterous mother (played by Mimsy Farmer) offers up a few more clues as to the true identity of the killer.Deodato ticks most of the genre boxes, not only offering several red-herrings and a couple of flashbacks, but also ensuring that his fun-loving teenagers engage in all sorts of high jinx and the occasional sexual encounter, before they meet their grisly fates: the hotties flash their tits and do aerobic workouts in teeny leotards (plus headband and leg-warmers—this is the 80s after all!), the fat prankster is insufferably zany (and deserves to die), whilst the rest of the blokes are just looking to get laid.Helping to add to the overall creepy atmosphere of the movie is a reliable turn from the always unhinged-looking Hess, some nice cinematography which makes good use of the remote locale, and a solid synth score from Goblin keyboard player Claudio Simonetti.After much screaming and killing, Deodato wraps up his movie with a Scooby-Doo style finalé (which sees the killer unmasked, and a ridiculous and implausible explanation given by way of a conversation between the survivors and the local sheriff), followed by a rather silly shock ending that makes no sense whatsoever.

What a relief to find out that Ruggero Deodato is a fallible human being after all. His teen slasher BODY COUNT is the perfect pill for anyone who might make the mistake of finding him to be maybe more than human. I've read comments from people saying he is a god, a genius, a bastard, and Satan, and my advice to any/all of those who feel that way is to watch this film.It could have been made by anybody, with only the remarkable supporting cast of Italian cult movie favorites as the selling point: David Hess, Mimsey Farmer, Charles Napier, Ivan Rassimov, John Steiner -- these are heavyweight names, so what are they doing in a disposable, formulaic and ultimately silly teen slasher movie? The answer is making a living, which is exactly what Deodato was doing as well. I would imagine he was under contract to direct a movie that would have to sell and this was what he chose to do. Anyone who has seen any three slasher horror thrillers made since 1981 or so will have a fairly easy time figuring out what is going to happen next, and if like me you've developed a taste for slightly offbeat, lower budgeted examples of the form this will prove to be somewhat more interesting than most.Besides it's cast the best thing the film has going for it is the use of locations -- one commenter has already identified much of it as Colorado, which may be the case but certain locations will be very, very familiar to anyone who has seen a Spaghetti Western or two. I recognized a waterfall location from THE GRAND DUEL, a field of boulders from DAYS OF VIOLENCE and some patches of woods from WHITE COMANCHE, so it looks like maybe they either filmed part of this in Spain or France in addition to Colorado and edited it all together to look like a seamless shoot.Who knows. It's wonderful to see an actor like John Steiner with that hollow, unemotional deadpan alongside Ivan Rassimov scowling at a bunch of college nitwits who are about to be chopped to bits. Deodato does deliver some good gore sequences during the butchery and the film is replete with the nudity the genre calls for, but honestly it could have been directed by just about anyone with a feel for shot composition, has none of the crackling immediacy or controversial nature of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, and serves as a workmanlike effort by a director who has been hailed as some sort of a demigod or agent of the Devil, depending on your sentiment.Nope, he's just a man, and as capable as anyone of making a routine, paint by the numbers movie that is of interest because he was the one that made it. How refreshingly stupid! 6/10