Quite possibly the worst movie I've ever watched...
Let me explain first that I had no expectations when I saw this. I turned it on at about 1:00 a.m., so I am inclined to give a lot of leeway to any movie I watch at that hour on a weekday. I also am a huge fan of low budget horror/suspense films, so I'm not knocking it because of any bias against this type of film. This started off okay, and then went downhill, picking up speed as it went. Although the acting was decent to good, these people didn't have much to work with in the way of a script.
SPOILERS
Some of the things I didn't like-
- With all the climbing and jumping, it wouldn't have been too hard to knock the Trasher down. They could have knocked him down in the elevator shaft, or off the drainpipe when he was climbing, or waited on the ground for him after they jumped from the rooftop. After jumping off a two story building, you're going to be a little vulnerable when you hit the ground. Granted, a minor detail, but annoying all the same.
- Inconsistency with regard to the Trasher's strength. He wipes out multiple teams of security and policemen, yet Maggie is able to mess him up by jumping on his back and then kicking him in the nuggets.
- Worst cops ever. The officers from the Police Academy series were more on the ball than these guys. Some highlights follow:
(A) Teams of police are wiped out by Trasher not once but twice during the course of the film.
(B) A team of police and FBI agents show up outside of the asylum to pick up their prisoner, guns drawn, and just start shooting at the entrance without waiting to find out what the cause of the commotion inside is.
(C) Maggie comes running out of the asylum after their shoot-em-up, and rather than get as many details as they can from her about what to expect inside, they basically manhandle her and tell one officer to lock her in a squad car. Of course, this hysterical woman overpowers the officer and steals a shotgun from the car while he is on the ground. As she runs inside after the LARGE team of agents, the cop she knocked over gets to his feet and is going to shoot her, when someone steps in and says something to the effect of "Don't shoot her, that's Doctor so-and-so." So he doesn't. Shoot her, I mean. Or yell at her. Or follow her.
- Lack of blood and gore. Quitz swallows the key to the asylum (the dark asylum, insert creepy background music here) and fights Trasher, and Trasher removes the key from Quitz's body (presumably after killing him), and yet there is not a spot of blood on him, other than his own blood which he had throughout most of the movie. By the way, he's wearing white.
- Bad decisions. Everyone in the movie suffers from a debilitating lack of good judgement. And I don't just mean by choosing to be a part of this film. Just a few examples:
(A) Dr. Fallon goes in the room with Trasher alone. And pays the price.
(B) Police show up late, use inadequate manpower, turn backs at wrong time, etc.
(C) Maggie doesn't tell police that Trasher has escaped and has told her that he's going to her house to kill her daughter and Grandma Peg; instead she does the aforementioned shotgun-grab trick and runs back into the asylum and follows him down into the sewers. Also, in the I've-got-to-save-my-daughter-confrontation scene, she whacks him in the head with a pipe a bunch of times, but doesn't cave his skull in to protect her daughter. He was recovering slowly enough that she could have gone right on whacking when he started stirring again.
(D) Trasher grabs Maggie's daughter, and decides to cage her and blow her up in the sewer. It was like a James Bond movie, "Let's not kill Mr. Bond with a bullet through the head, let's strap him to a table and make him watch fat albino ladies peel shrimp until he begs for death!"
Anyway, there are many, many more reasons to dislike this movie, and many more examples of the absolute idiocy which permeates this flick. It doesn't even have that "so bad it's funny" quality going for it. The few attempts at humor are so heavy-handed and obvious that they are just annoying rather than funny.
Eh, who knows? Maybe a few more hours of sleep deprivation and a lot of alcohol might have made this movie more enjoyable to me, but I doubt it. Might be worth renting if you're impaired, otherwise I wouldn't waste your time.
"That skag, and his floozy...they're gonna die!" - Roop from Mad Max