NIKOS THE IMPALER
aka NIKOS
aka NIKOS – DER SCHLÄCHTER
aka VIOLENT SHIT 4 – NIKOS
USA/Germany 2003
Directed by: Andreas Schnaas
Cast: Joseph Zaso, Felissa Rose, Brenda Abbandandolo, Patrick S. Tierney, Joseph Michael Lagana, Joe Lattanzi, Michael Russo, Dennis Albanese, Sal Sirchia, Tina Kay, Joy Seligsohn, Preston Barnes, Steve Moramarco, Alicia Tsai, Darian Caine, Lenise Soren, Lloyd Kaufman, Debbie Rochon, Tina Krause, Darian Caine, Bela B. Felsenheimer, Noemi Domokos, Rainer Matsutani, Andreas Schnaas as Nikos...
Running Time: 100 min. (US DVD)
Tagline
(taken from the US poster) He’s gonna paint the town red… blood red Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) The Big Apple gets a new immigrant and a very big problem! Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) Don’t let him hear the beat of your heart. He’ll tear it right out! Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) Good Party Flick (imdb.com) Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) Pure Partysplatter (Gory News) Tagline
(taken from the US DVD) One of the goriest films of the year (Fangoria) Covertext (taken from the US DVD) All of Romania feared Nikos, a bloodthirsty barbarian and cannibal, murderer of many. But one moonlit night, a courageous few, with torches clutched in their hands, put the ungodly monster to an end. Yet, with his dying words, the maniacal Nikos claimed not even death would stop him. Now, centuries later, at Manhattan’s famed Bancroft Gallery, a spectacular Romanian art exhibition is in full swing, and all the beautiful people are there. But a botched robbery attempt has accidentally brought the monster back from the dead, and as the legend foretold, Nikos is hungry for blood! Brace yourself because it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, or what you are… He WILL find you. And when he does, he will tear the screams RIGHT from your throat. From Germany’s acclaimed Master of Horror, Andreas Schnaas, comes the wildest, wackiest and goriest tale of 2003! Starring Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) and Joseph Zaso (Demonium, Machines of Love and Hate). Move over Freddy and Jason – NIKOS is the new name in horror!
My Thoughts
If extreme, senseless violence and over-the-top gore (gore for gore’s sake so to speak) is your cup of tea than you’re gonna probably have a jolly good time with this mindless splatter fun flick from ‘acclaimed’ (yeah, right!) German director Andreas Schnaas, infamous for his home-made gore epics with which he has started his career in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Ever heard of VIOLENT SHIT (1989; it’s exactly what the title promises!) or ZOMBIE ’90 – EXTREME PESTILENCE (1990; forget DAY OF THE DEAD 2: CONTAGIUM (2005) and CHILDREN OF THE LIVING DEAD (2001) – this one has got to be the single worst zombie movie in the history of cinema!)? If not, consider yourself lucky, because these two exercises in no-budget splatter are pretty much unwatchable. But because of these dumb excuses for films he got himself a reputation, and better a bad reputation than no reputation at all, eh? Luckily, the next ‘films’ he came up with, were better (which isn’t an achievement, as the opposite would have been impossible). Not nearly good, mind you, still light-years away from it, but at least they started to become entertaining which can’t be said about his first two features. VIOLENT SHIT 2 – MOTHER HOLD MY HAND (1992) has its moments (particularly in the beginning), and VIOLENT SHIT 3 – INFANTRY OF DOOM (aka ZOMBIE DOOM, 1999) is a bizarre no-brain splatfest that’s actually incredibly enjoyable when watched in the right mood. This reviewer at least is not ashamed to admit that he had lots of fun with it. Meister Schnaas also remade the infamous Aristide Massaccesi-directed ANTHROPOPHAGOUS (1980) in 1999 as ANTHROPOPHAGOUS 2000, adding much more of the red stuff, some nudity and a ludicrous body-count to the notorious video nasty. And yes, the foetus this time is not a skinned rabbit, although it would have been better and more convincing if it were… DEMONIUM (2001) may be Schnaas’ best film to date, as it not only was shot on film (all his other movies were shot on video, it seems) but was made with professionals before and behind the camera, so the final result at least resembles a film. Anyway, back to NIKOS, at the time of writing the latest film he has finished. NIKOS is fun, good fun, when watched in the right mood, and a few beers wouldn’t hurt to increase the fun factor. Apart from all the guts and gore that is presented in NIKOS (and rightly so, I guess, as that’s exactly what one does expect from Mr. Schnaas) there are a few other things worth mentioning. For example, the pounding rock soundtrack is quite good, helping to push the story along at a swift pace. The film (that is dedicated to Fanni the Cat by the way) has got a lot of funny moments, and most of them actually are intended that way. It’s all so over the top that it’s impossible to take seriously. At one point the heroine says “This makes no fucking sense!” and that’s exactly what I thought at the film’s climax when Nikos brings a few characters to life straight out of video box covers! They are a sexy female succubus, a zombie, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, and – hooray! – two Ninjas (which causes the girl to comment: “Sure, Ninjas, why the fuck not?”). The few CGI-FX are rather crappy and the Ninjas are pretty pathetic as they don’t kill anybody! Instead, they are both decapitated by a sharp metal lid. Watch out for the cool video-store sequence that features cameos by Bela B. Felsenheimer (from the German cult band Die Ärzte), Troma-chef Lloyd Kaufman (shouting “Do you have BLOODSUCKING FREAKS here?”) and scream queen Debbie Rochon, among a few others. I particularly like the cute pink-haired girl who seems to be the girlfriend of director Rainer Matsutani who also shows up to get his heart ripped out! The cast is generally okay, considering the low budget, and it’s fun to watch them get killed in the most extreme ways. In the pre-credit sequence even we see some guts falling out of Niko’s slashed belly and he heartily bites in ‘em (an obvious homage to ANTHROPOPHAGOUS). Later, people are decapitated, have their faces ripped off or their heads smashed, arms are torn off, a guy gets torn in half, his intestines spilling out, bodies are speared, faces demolished, people torn asunder, there’s gut-ripping, head bursting, bullet hits… name it and it’s there, probably. While the special gore effects are okay, realistic they ain’t! Fans of Andreas Schnaas’ earlier work are rewarded with a few in-jokes too. In a cinema DEMONIUM and ZOMBIE DOOM (= VIOLENT SHIT 3 – INFANTRY OF DOOM) are on the schedule, and Schnaas included some images from the latter. A policeman asks the owner of the cinema: “You’ve seen anything weird?” He replies: “Other than the movie? No.” Later the policeman takes a look at the screen and says “Look at this violent shit!”. So if a senseless mix of gratuitous violence, gratuitous nudity and over-the-top gratuitous bloodshed is your cup of tea than you can’t go wrong with NIKOS. If you just want to see some Ninjas in action it’s hardly worth tracking down though and I suggest you’re gonna buy Thilo Gosejohann’s wonderful OPERATION DANCE SENSATION (2003) instead. NIKOS is an enjoyable slice of fun splatter that could break the ice at some dreary parties. On the other hand it could help you to get rid of some unwanted party guests in no time. Take your pick!
© Copyright 07/2006
All text by myself (except for some quotations where mentioned)
All photos are copyright their respective owners and are reproduced here in the
spirit of publicity. All screenshots are by myself.