When in 1983 The Antwerp Killer came out it was one of those flicks that rather had some good promotion. It was shown on the Knokke Heist film festival which was organised by nowadays popular director Jan Verheyen. Not only that, on the national television called BRT there was even a fragment shown in Premiere, a program about national and international flicks. But at the film festival they programmed this flick due the title and didn't seen it in preview and from there on things went rather wrong with The Antwerp Killer. The reel with the flick came too late to even then had a fast showing to the jury so they had to show it to journalist and audience without knowing what it was all about. People really laughed it out when shown and the critics called it the worse Belgain flick ever.
The director Luc Veldeman didn't had any problem with that fact but his father as rumours go was mad as hell and drove out to destroy every copy he could find. And so within weeks The Antwerp Killer vanished from the earth. Of course some geeks back then copied the flick from rental shops but even then it was hard to see this flick. From 1984 it became one of the most searched flicks coming out of Belgian and the request is still out nowadays to have proper release. But so far no good. I searched for years on every site possible and flea market to find a copy of it. Even when the VHS rental shops went out of business I went out for the hunt, you never know but oktober 2013 my hunt became real, I just watched The Antwerp Killer.
And I must admit that this is a must see. Only clocking in at 50 minutes it's worth that time of your life. This is really bad, this is pure cult, pure Z-flick with no budget at all and be aware that within those 50 minutes you will see for a few minutes rooftops from Antwerp and towards the end you will have a flashback with the best of The Antwerp Killer. So in fact the movie itself only takes 35 minutes if you count that part out. But just watch the scene at the docks how overacted that was and the clothing from the mob, unbelievable. And the cops came aware of a drug dealing at the docks from the newspapers headlines, go figure that one out.
Even the killings themselves are laughable. You can see that one stab with a knife was done with the victim pushing on some kind of balloon filled with 'blood'. Once on the ground not having proper lighting she moves with her face towards the camera to reveal some blood coming out of her mouth. The dream sequence of the girl in bed when the killer enters her apartment is also a must see. What went on in this flick I don't know, how they new who the killer was and why they shoot towards a girl I don't know.
Worth mentioning was the fact that Herbert Flack, famous Belgian thespian, was involved somehow with The Antwerp Killer but nothing can be found on the net about that and Flack himself never answers the question. But who was embarrassed was Michel Follet a famous presenter at the BRT of Cinemanie from 81 until 86. He still can be heard at JOEfm but don't ask the man about this flick.
And what about the score used, did The Thing ring a bell? Or Halloween? What we do have is some new wave music at a local pub from Cocteau Twins and some Killing Joke graffiti, also worth spotting is the shopping era of Antwerp back then.
After the official release of De Aardwolf (1984) people are waiting that Luc Veldeman will agree to make finally an official release of this cult flick. But for this moment, none of this will happen and still the hunt is on for so many collectors around the world.
Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0/5 Story 0/5 Comedy 0/5
