Nikos the Impaler (2003)

 

Director: Andreas Schnaas

Screenplay: Ted Geoghegan

Cast: Joe Zaso as Frank Heller; Felissa Rose as Sandra Kane; Andreas Schnaas as Nikos; Brenda Abbandandolo as Daisy; Joseph Michael Lagana as Pete; Joe Lattanzi as Ryan

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

"Who dresses these people?"

"Probably their pets."

Romania 1002, and I am unsure whether 11th century Romanians would say "crap" but this is a splatter film, one where I will make the blasphemous comparison that, for the notorious splatter filmmaker from Germany behind the Violent Shit trilogy, there is no real different here with Nikos the Impaler and when an auteur like Wong Kar-Wai makes a film in the USA like My Blueberry Nights (2007). The difference is that Jude Law's face did not get ripped in My Blueberry Nights in the first few minutes, as the titular Impaler gets gang retribution against him for all his killing, but the differences are in genre here. I still can see this as Andreas Schnaas paying tribute to American horror cinema in his own way, also playing Nikos in costume, ripping people to shreds and rampaging across New York City

Even with his guts slipping out on the floor, Nikos claims immorality, and even eats his own guts Joe D'Amato style to emphasise this before he keels over before we cut to New York with a guitar solo song to explain where we are. The film is two separate pieces which connect together, one half in the then-modern day explaining how Nikos himself was a Northland barbarian who killed 300 people and hated Romania, even shafted by history itself as Vlad the Impaler came decades later and stole his thunder. A group of students and their teacher – two male slackers wanting extra credit, a girl named Daisy, two elder tourists and a somewhat positive depiction of a gay male couple, alongside the male teacher and his love interest Ms. Cane – go to a Romanian art show where a theft was planned at the gallery. Naturally with the exhibit having  a labyrinth full of old weapons, the botched robbery struggle gets blood on Niko's helmet, and resurrects him, wanting to repay everyone for this with a surprising amount of decapitations and, for a rare example of this, even the full severing off of someone’s face.

A ultra low-budget splatter film, with static early 2000s aesthetic but definitely shot in New York City, what this turns out to be with hindsight is what Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) was supposed to be but this outdoes. Jason Takes Manhattan was the last film of the original Friday the 13^th franchise, before New Line Cinema acquired the rights and made Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), which notoriously promised to have Jason in the Big Apple. Only has a couple of scenes were shot on real locations and is mostly set on a boat. I like the film, but a large portion of Nikos the Impaler is in the gallery, but once it gets to the second half, this is clearly shot in the city and Long Island. Set to eighties speed metal throwbacks, and obvious but effective practical gore effects, this starts as a traditional gorier slasher but becomes a more elaborate take on Jason Take Manhattan with far less restrictions with what it could do, both in stealing shots across the city to the ridiculous number or the number of gory head trauma deaths.

It is also a tribute to cult American cinema and a really good snapshot of what indie American genre films were like in the time period – clearly set in 2003 with posters of Crossroads (2002), the Britney Spears star vehicle, a video rental shop selling Jason X (2001), the Friday the 13^th film set in outer space, alongside The Sum of All Fears (2002), and a reference to “that wizard Larry Potter kid”. Like the wave of German splatter films from the eighties on, you see figures, recognisable or for viewers of niche fringes of low budget genre cinema, appear in this. B-movie actress/filmmaker Tina Krause makes a cameo as Eva Braun, which will be explained later in this review, and there is an extended scene, playing themselves, of a group of figures in the video store connected to Troma Films, from an actress from their films Debbie Rochon to Troma figurehead Lloyd Kaufman himself, naturally selling his own films, wearing a dapper bow tie before he is killed and truly being the Stan Lee of cult cinema. One very obscure figure, but a great nod to this era of straight-to-video cinema from this cinema, is also the cameo of Darian Caine, a regular of softcore erotic films from this era, like The Erotic Witch Project (2000), even if it is just for a gratuitous shower scene.

Even if using a gym and a cinema among places, Andreas Schnaas was filming on real locations here, a production where people onscreen worked behind the camera, and clearly made for the love of filmmaking. A set pieces running into an all-women's gay bar searching for a man uses an actual bar for the location, and the end even recreates the iconic shot from Zombi 2 (1979) with Nikos on the Brooklyn Bridge. They even managed to acquire an aerial metropolis shot, if brief, which shows a lot of care and effort into the film which is a grab bag of splatter and humour. Even when there were clear limitations as a low budget film, I admire the achievements; there are also times you need to realise with films like this, once you come to this type of cinema, that their pleasures comes from admitting their practical limitations. Case in point, when a sword able to shot lightning briefly appears, obviously you have to use CGI as here because you cannot explode a car in the middle of New York even in guerrilla filmmaking.

It is an indulgent film, where Andreas Schnaas can mock his own production Zombie '90: Extreme Pestilence (1991) but can have it screening in a cinema in one of his films, yet I can respect this because there is a level of unpredictability here without padding. Random ninjas can be seen, you can suddenly have German rap metal in the score, and whilst Adolf Hitler abruptly makes an appearance, summoned alongside figures from the director’s own films from DVDs in a rental store, the German filmmaker just makes this a way to mock the dictator, Hitler complaining he is not in charge and promptly getting exploded for talking back. For those with the taste for these films, it is one of the most ambitious in how, in a foreign country for him, Schnaas still made a film that was not comnpromised and packs a lot into itself. A level of commitment too that is visible here is enough to be admired, and this even shows levels of commitment few films have as, whilst starring in their own film is one thing, most filmmakers have never sung on the power metal song about Nikos as Schnaas does here, which is a new level of dedication especially as he does a credible power metal vocal. Neither for its gore either does it feel repugnant either but actually fun for all its gruel, like Herschell Gordon Lewis films, which is the most rewarding thing. Nikos the Impaler is the kind of film you would point blank dismiss for being nasty for the sake of it, and being a series of tangents into gore scenes, but somehow knowing there is a dedication to Fanni the cat in the end credits, one of the last ones, does emphasis the makers of this were ordinary people who just got together to make a spectacle like this. With mind of how no and ultra-low budget films are being re-evaluated and preserved, Nikos is a good one to have a second life from if for the fact that, to try to sell this for an imaginary Blu-Ray restoration, this takes what we wanted from Jason Takes Manhattan, actually achieves it and adds far more gore, more personal creativity, more playful humour, and a comical amount of head based trauma into the proceedings.