I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A group of bank robbers take some hostages after a heist and hightail it to an abandoned underground subway station. After being double crossed by one of their members, the group finds themselves lost in the underground tunnels. To make matters worse there is a killer on the loose in the tunnels known as the Trackman (Aleksey Dmitriev) who stalks and kills our hapless group. With goggles and a pick Ax in hand, the Trackman goes to work and the group falls one by one. This Russian horror film has an impressive looking villain in the Trackman and some of the deaths by pick ax have some fun to them. Director Igor Shavlak keeps Trackman in the shadows and manages to build suspense in short blasts. Unfortunately the screenplay and the poor dubbing get in the way too many times and sink the film every time it gets going. One of the actresses dubbing one of the characters is whining the entire time and is annoying as hell. There isn't any real explanation for the Trackman being down there or what the bank robbers were trying to accomplish by going underground after the robbery. A cool killer, who belonged in a better movie.

Or is it "My bloody Russian-tine"? Any which way, this tries to mix horror and action into one movie. And while it is very familiar (to anyone who has watched a slasher movie before), it is done decent enough. Not good mind you, but not bad either. The characters are exchangeable (but then again, what slasher movie has great characters in them? Exactly!) and the death scenes are not overly inventively (not in my book anyway).What stays is a nice setting/atmosphere and an extra point for trying. Russian movies that are successful outside their homeland were mostly movies that are thoughtful (Solaris et al). Recently of course there was some Fantasy (Nochnoy Dozor aka Night Watch for example) and here we have a slasher. Nice for a try, but nothing to get too excited about.

Obviously blatantly "inspired" by a few other horror films (namely "My Bloody Valentine" and "See No Evil") "Trackman" is a rather boring and lazy film that meanders along through all the typical slasher film clichés that we have come to know. However, a tad of originality never killed anybody and this is a concept that completely eludes the makers of this film.The plot centers around a couple of criminals who decide to rob a busy bank in the downtown Moscow area. After fatally shooting a security guard the crooks take a few female hostages and escape into an abandoned tunnel that runs below the bustling city of Moscow. However, it seems they chose the wrong hiding place, as a serial killer wearing a variation of a gas mask and armed with a pick axe (sound familiar?) patrols the tunnel, ready to kill and collect the eyes of anyone foolish enough to venture into to it.The Good: "Trackman" is a great looking film. The production values are top notch and, stylistically, the film the film works better than most horror films that have made it into theaters lately. The tunnel setting is definitely creepy and claustrophobic, but the director doesn't take full advantage of this opportunity. The killer is also pretty creepy and intimidating, and his mask/costume works pretty well. He is certainly your 80's style slasher film killer.The Bad: For starters, the characters are all annoying as hell (even the two hostages), so it is really hard to sympathize or even care about any of them. Instead of going this route with the plot/characters, I feel the film could have been more effective following the typical "teenagers in peril" formula. Instead of having robbers as the main characters, have a bunch of teenagers who venture into the tunnels for a little partying be the victims. In fact, when I was watching this film, I kept thinking of the film "Catacombs" and how, if we could take elements from each of these films to make one film, it could be pretty darn good. In addition to having uninteresting characters, the film itself gets pretty boring. There are long stretches of time where nothing happens except the group wandering around the tunnel, occasionally stopping to yell at each other or slap around the hostages. It doesn't keep the viewers attention at all, and when the slashing does begin, it's entirely too late and too tame to redeem the film. Again, we don't care at all about the characters, so it is hard to get too invested in what happens to them. When the end finally does come, it is such a head-scratcher that it makes you even more angry that you just bored yourself for an hour watching the dang film.Overall: A film that is pleasing to look at because of its high production values and stylish setting, but suffers because of a boring pace, extremely clichéd and predictable plot, and unlikeable characters. I'd strongly suggest skipping this one and popping in "My Bloody Valentine"(either the remake OR original!), as no matter how many times you have seen it, it will still be more exciting and entertaining that "Trackman!" FrightMeter Grade: D-

Trackman could as well be an American movie if you replace the Russian cliché actors with their Hollywood clichés. The whole thing is pretty much ripped from other movies and stretched to the limit. It starts in a pretty modern way where 2 bank robbers make their plan in a McDonalds, time switching to the later bank robbery and back. Although I liked the beginning of the movie it seemed a unnatural and like the director begging to be different. Anyway, we've seen this... although not in a horror movie. So what next... After the robbery fails they take hostages and hide... oh yeah .... in an old abandoned metro tunnel system under a junkyard. You can guess whats coming from that point. Now you got 4 gangsters and 3 hostages to go for a killer who lives down there and has a strange interest in his victims eyes. The whole thing makes absolutely no sense... so the typical comment of one gangster "Did you hear the tale of a mutated maniac living down here" is totally nullified with the ending which is trying to give an endless 80 slasher-minutes some meaning and fails miserably because it makes absolutely no sense with a killer having his eyeball-collection office installed down there. If the movie sticked to its slasher basics maybe it could have succeeded with the eerie atmosphere in the tunnels but still most of the time nothing is happening and the eeriness wears off after seeing dark empty tunnels with something moving far away for the 100th time. The kills are boring, the acting not too convincing and the back story seems too constructed trying to get out of its genre barriers but stumbling across its many plot holes. If you like dark empty tunnels and pickaxe-murders with wielding goggles mixed in with some real annoying modern editing and action-elements thrown in... go ahead. I guess the ending will ruin it even for you... the escape sequence on the motorcycle is beyond laughable.