Movie Info
Movie Name: The Mutilator
Studio: OK Productions
Genre(s): Horror/B-Movie
Release Date(s): August 1984 (Premiere)/October 5, 1984 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
Well…see the problem here is that your neck is bleeding profusely…and your head fell off
A tragic accident leaves “Big Ed” (Jack Chatham) broken from reality and forever drives a wedge between him and his son. Now Ed (Matt Mitler) gets a call from his father to shut down his beach cottage for the winter and his friends decide that it would be the perfect time for a fall vacation. Ed, his girlfriend Pam (Ruth Martinez), and their friends Ralph (Bill Hitchock), Sue (Connie Rogers), Linda (Frances Raines), and Mike (Morey Lampley) discover that the beach is nice but surviving fall break might not be in the cards.
Directed by Buddy Cooper (who also wrote the script) and John S. Douglass, The Mutilator is a grindhouse style slasher horror movie which also goes by the original title of Fall Break. The movie fought an X-Rating and as a result multiple cuts of the film exist. It was released to mixed reviews.
Sometimes even a mutilator must stop and admire his work
The Mutilator seems like one of those generic movies that kids list in other movies when they tell their parents they are going to watch a horror movie. The film is largely just Big Ed (it isn’t a secret) killing the kids…it is the type of horror movie that is what it is.
Unlike many horror films from the time, the kids are all quickly dispatched and there isn’t much “fight or flight” moments until the end. The movie capitalizes on gory deaths which generally involve Ed impaling the characters on various implements. The film is largely forgettable until the end which turns into a real bloody mess including gaff impaling through the privates, a severed torso, and a surprise amputation…if nothing else the last ten minutes are a shocker.
The cast is the typical 1980s shiny twenty-something kids. The only real difference between the characters seem to be the color of their hair and who is hooking up with whom. Matt Mitler and Ruth Martinez get to be the final guy and girl, and it feels like Jack Chatham’s “Big Ed” character missed a lot of opportunities to be more interesting.
Maybe the mutilator could be like a worm and both halves keep killing for a sequel
The big draw of this movie is the gore and the deaths. While it feels like the movie goes for the cheap route often, the deaths do seem top-notch (for the time). The practical effects are pretty good, but even the filmmakers had issues (they had to drown the Linda characters when the more elaborate death didn’t work). The film culminating stunt was the dismemberment…which was a bit of a surprise.
The Mutilator or Fall Break or whatever you want to call it will not go down as a great work of art or even a great work of horror, but it does have its moments and it seems to deliver on its promise for “mutilation”. With a shotgun blast to start and a brassy, poppy “Fall Break” song soon after, The Multilator feels like a product of its time (and that can be fun if you are in the right mood).
