Intensive Care

Two houses, one street, one phone booth, one car, a girl next door, a boy next door and a zombie. This list of ingredients should suffice for a great horror movie. All you need is some blue light, ambient music and...done. Not in the hands of Dutch director van Rouveroy though!

I like to organize "bad movie evenings" from time to time. The concept is really simple: get some booze, get some film-loving friends, and immerse yourself in the worst cinema can offer. For such an evening this peace of filth is one of the best. Laughs guaranteed!

The bizarre thing is, van Rouveroy is still defending her film as if it were a great achievement. To be a witness to this you'll have to listen to the DVD's commentary track. Again: disbelieve and laughs guaranteed!

This infamous ending to Koen Wauters' career came to my attention through the 'Night of Bad Taste'. Judging by the comment index i wasn't the first and i am not to be the last person in Western Europe to learn that this musician (undoubtedly one of the best on our contemporary pop scene, even the Dutch agree on that) tried to be an actor. Whether he should have made the attempt or not cannot be judged.

In 'Intensive Care' he's quite likable, but he seems to be uncomfortable with the flick in which he is participating. No one can blame him. It deserves its ranking in Verheyen's Hall of Fame by all means & standards. The story of the Murderous Maniac Who is Supposed To Have Died In An Accident But Is Alive And Wrathful has been told dozens of times before, and even without original twists a director can deliver a more than mediocre story through innovative settings and cinematography.

IC contents itself with a hospital wing and a couple of middle class houses. The pace is dull. The tension looses the last bit of its credibility to the musical score, for every appearance of the murderer is accompagnied by a tedious menacing melody, followed by orchestral outbursts during the murders, which or largely suggested and in any case as bloodless as a small budget can make them. The sex scene is gratuitous but not in the least appealing. The couple from Amsterdamned could have made it work, though. While dealing with the couple subject : the whole subplot between Wauters and the girl does not work. A more effective emotional connection could have been established on screen if they had just been fellow victims-to-be, who loosen their nerves halfway through physical intercourse. I will not even grant the other cast members the dignity of a mentioning, for they should all have been chopped up into tiny greasy pieces. As a matter of fact, most of them do. The ones i recall where obvious for the genre : a pretty nurse and two cops.

Hence, in a slasher, the cavalry only comes in time to need rescue itself. The (anti-) hero has to take out the villain, mostly through clever thinking, for former red berets don't often get parts in these films; they might overcome the illusion of invincibility that surrounds the killer. Translated to the events, Wauters kills the doctor and saves the dame in distress.

No people, i am not finished. This is not how the story goes. Wauters makes his heroic attempt but gets beaten up with a fury that comes close to "A Clockwork Orange", so it is up to the girl to pick up the driller killer act and pierce through the doctors brains. Though this method ensures the killer's death more than the usual rounds of 9mm bullets, the doctor survives in order to enable IC to reach the 80 min mark.

I should have made my point by now. Intensive Care is a bad movie, which can only be enjoyed by Bad Taste lovers, who can verify Verheyen's catchy statements and make some up for themselves and that way try to sit through it. For example, the (unintended) parody value of the doctor's clown mask (Halloween) and the final confrontation in the park (the chase at the end of Friday the 13th).

However, let me conclude by giving an overview by a few measly elements which give IC a little credit. George Kennedy is not one of them. All he has to do is endure a horrible monologue by a fellow doctor/French actor and look horrified when they let him go down in flames in order to tag his big name on a stand-in. He could have played his Naked Gun part again, to end up as beef, but with a longer screen time. The finale may be one of them. I had never seen a maniac being brought down by launching fireworks into his guts in order to crush him against a flexible fence. It is good for a laugh.

Name one good truly point about Intensive Care ... Koen Wauters learned his lesson and devoted himself entirely to his musical career. It makes me wonder how many editions of the Paris-Dakar race he has to abort before coming to his senses.

"Intensive Care" by Dorna von Rouveroy is easily one of the worst horror movies ever made.This extremely cheap Dutch slasher flick offers some gore and plenty of absurd situations.A horror veteran George Kennedy is completely wasted as as Professor Bruckner.The acting is abysmal,the action is slow and the climax is laughable.A famous surgeon has a car accident.He lies in a coma seven years and then he wakes up and goes on a bloody rampage."Intensive Care" is clearly influenced by American slasher films including "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" series.The killings are hilarious and the dialogs are painfully stupid.Still if you are in the right mood you can give this piece of trash a look.You'll laugh until it hurts with this one-you can believe me!

Koen Wouters is a flemish singer and presenter. In the early ninety's he tried his hand on movies as well. But this unbelievable piece of junk ended his acting career once and for all. It also ended the acting career of dutch actress Nada van Nie who went on being a football-wife a TV presenter and program-maker. I actually did see this in an ( almost empty) theatre because I used to be a fan of the band of Koen Wouters, Clouseau. I so regret spending money on it. It looks cheap, it is a terrible story and it is executed bad in every possible way. Some people think it's so bad it's funny. I am not one of them. I just found it an incredible waste of time and money.

I actually saw this one in the cinema when it came out! I read that they wanted to make a sort of dutch Halloween...they failed i guess. I remember people laughing in the theater over all the gore.

Weird thing is: i really want to have a copy of this one, but it is hard to get. As a Dutch horrorfan this should be in the collection.

And i read this somewhere: Quentin Tarantino loves this movie! He took it to a cultfestival in texas...