Born for Hell

In Denis Héroux's gritty Belfast-set thriller Naked Massacre, Cain, a sexually-confused psychotic switchblade-wielding Vietnam veteran, breaks into a house and submits a group of young nurses to a night of terror, leaving only one survivor to tell the tale.

With a plot offering sexual degradation and brutal violence, the film succeeds in being disturbing thematically, but it is missing either the sense of nerve-wracking tension or the no-holds-barred attitude necessary for it to be a totally effective experience.

Had Héroux added more in the way of creepy atmosphere (a decent score might have helped), or ramped up the sleaze levels by being more explicit with the gore and depravity, then I feel that the film would have been much more successful. Just as it seems the director is about to deliver a classic scene of celluloid nastiness, he tends to bottle it. For example, a scene in which the killer hooks up with an ageing prostitute, promises to be both extremely sordid and potentially very violent (think of Cropsy's encounter with the whore in The Burning and you get an idea of what could have been) but ends with a whimper, with the loony simply pushing the topless crone to the floor and running away.

Likewise, a later scene, in which Cain tries to force a nurse to perform oral sex on one of her house-mates before making the poor girl kill her friend, cheats the audience by neither showing the unsavoury sex act (almost, but not quite) or the gruesome death. Other deaths also wimp out on the good stuff, happening off screen or in the dark.

A film that is bloody scary can afford to be light on the gore; a film that is very gory can afford to ignore atmosphere in favour of stomach churning effects. Naked Massacre is neither. It tries hard, with a fair bit of nudity, an efficient and cold-blooded killer, and a nasty scene at the end which involves a touch of DIY tattoo removal, but in the end I couldn't help but feel that the film would've been so much better if it had gone the extra mile to offend.

A disturbed American war veteran -Mathieu Carrière- arrives in Belfast during the Northern Ireland conflicts , and proceeds to terrorize a household of female nursing students (Debra Berger , Christine Boisson , Myriam Boyer , Leonora Fani , Ely Galleani , Carole Laure , Eva Mattes) and executing tasteless tortures . For these nine young women, opening the door that night meant ending their live ! . Nine scaring young women. One night. Defiled. Tortured. Torn apart . A diabolic shocker that will grip you and hold you Spellbound ! . Don't ever let him enter your house ! No woman can escape him because he was Born for Hell

A grim and thrilling film about a boarding house that is invaded by a heinous visitor , it contains inexplicable disturbing occurrences , shocks, thrills , suspense , chills , hair-rising events and surprising final . Dealing with an eerie story of a stranger who arrives in Belfast and invades a house shared by eight nurses , while carries out a criminal spree and proceeding to kill them . Loosely based on the notorious Richard Speck murders , this starts off at a brief depiction of the Besfast streets , pubs and violent confrontation between IRA members and British cops , as the camera lurks suspensenful behind its actors and beside them and above them and everywhere else . The story is uneven paced , suffering from some weak incidents and of varying quality , packing nice as well as fleeble moments . The main amusement of this slasher results to be to guess the kind of murder to execute by the creepy killer , and discover the young actress to be assassinated by stabbing . A scary and disgusting flick that garnered lousy reception as critics as indifferent reception by the general public . Nowadays , it is a little better considered , in spite of its short budget and the claustrophobic environment , as the picture goes on growing more and more and developing little by little until the unexpected ending . Nice acting by the German Mathieu Carrière as the unsettling Vietnam vet returning home via Belfast resulting in fateful consequences . He's well accompanied a lot of known B-actress from Europe that starred a lot of films at the time and in all kinds of genres , such as : Debra Berger , Christine Boisson , Miriam Boyer, Leonora Fani , Ely Galleani , Carole Laure and Eva Mattes who often played for Werner Herzog .

Atmospheric cinematography , though being really necessary a perfect remastering . Shot on location in Hamburg, Germany , Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland (Belfast segments) , Belfast, County Antrimc, Northern Irelandc, UK and Studio Bendestorf, Lower Saxony, Germany . This chilling and obscure terror movie was regularly directed by Denis Héroux and uncredited Géza von Radványi . This nice filmmaker Denis Héroux, was born 1940 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and died 2015 in Montreal . He was a producer/director, and Member of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1981 . He was awarded the O. C. -Officer of the Order of Canada- on December 19 , 1983 for his services to the film industry in Canada . He was a notorious director and producer , being especially known for The Uncanny (1977) , Atlantic City (1980) , Quest for Fire (1981) , The Bay Boy (1984) , The Park in Mine (1985) . Denis directed some films in all sorts of genres , such as : ¨Born for Hell , Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris , Strikebreaker , Y'a toujours moyen de moyenner! , J'ai mon voyage! , Quelques arpents de neige , Un enfant comme les autres.., fois... par jour , L'amour humain , L'initiation , Valérie , Pas de vacances pour les idoles and Alone or with Others¨ . Born For Hell (1976) rating : 5/10 . Mediocre , though passable terror movie.

Even though the Richard Speck student-nurse murders took place in America, most of the movies inspired by the incident strangely enough were foreign. These include the disturbing Japanese film "Violated Angels", the relatively shocking ending to the ho-hum Italian giallo/sex romp "Slaughter Hotel", and perhaps to some extent even the Canadian proto-slasher flick "Black Christmas". This movie, however, is probably the closest in circumstances to the actual incident. Not that it doesn't make some unusual choices, especially for what is basically an exploitation film. It's set in Belfast, North Ireland, for instance, during the height of "the troubles" when bombs were exploding and Catholics, Protestants, IRA terrorists and British troops were fighting in the streets. Also, the murderer (played by Mathieu Carrare)is an American Vietnam vet where the real Speck was merely a merchant marine. The movie doesn't do much with this though as the Speck character seems far more motivated by his wife's infidelities than any trauma he suffered in Vietnam, and any on-location realism that is achieved is ruined by the bad dubbing (the Irish and English nurses and American killer all speak in the same stilted continental accents of the usual gang of Euro-idiots that dubbed these things).

The movie was distributed mostly under the more lurid title "Naked Massace", and after a strangely large amount of character development of both the nurses and the killer, it lives up to that title when they finally meet and he ties them up and starts bumping them off one by one. The real-life Speck only raped one of the nurses (although far more graphically than what is shown here), but the guy here sexually abuses nearly all of them (one of whom, perhaps in a nod to Sharon Tate, is even pregnant). The most lurid scene is when he forces two closeted lesbians to have sex with each other. Although, it's hard to do such a scene sensitively, this scene is handled even less sensitively than the similar scene in the much more infamous "Last House on the Left".

The director, Denis Heroux, interesting enough, is French Canadian and got his start in superior "maple syrup porn" films like "Valerie" and "L'Initiation" but had his career ended when he was made the scapegoat for the failure of hack British producer Milton Subotsky's idiotic horror movie "The Uncanny". This film, made in the middle of his short career, shows an interesting but obviously declining talent. The cast includes Carol Laure and pretty Italian starlet Ely Galeani. I got this as part of a cheap 50 DVD horror collection. If you can find THAT, it's definitely worth watching. Otherwise, well. . .

"Naked Massacre" is pretty strong stuff; a disturbing thriller definitely NOT for squeamish or faint-hearted people! It's not that gory or exaggeratedly sleazy, like the two key words of the title lead you to believe, but it's truly intense and filmed in such a sober way that you'll feel VERY uncomfortable. The story is something like Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians", only in this case it's Eight Pretty Nurses. Actually, that's not funny since this movie is inspired by the murders committed by real-life madman Richard Speck in 1966; Chicago. The setting of this notorious case has been moved, very ingeniously I may add, to Ireland in the mid-70's, when there was the post-Vietnam depression as well as the Irish civil war and bombings. On his way home from Vietnam, a young American soldier ends up in Belfast with no money or acquaintances. He's traumatized, has a very nihilistic world perspective and a petrifying hatred for women. It doesn't take long before he breaks into a mansion and starts terrorizing the eight young nurses that live there. "Naked Massacre" is obviously cheap and poorly edited, yet the atmosphere is constantly grim and the murders are genuinely shocking. The girls are physically abused, emotionally tortured and eventually stabbed to death with a BIG knife. There are no morals, comic reliefs or happy endings here, so only people with an iron stomach will be able to sit through this movie without suffering from nightmares afterwards. The acting performances are pretty decent, despite some of the dialogs being extremely inept and cheesy. Highly recommended in case you're searching for a horror/thriller that will really get under your skin.

Richard Franklin Speck (1941 - 1991), the killer of eight student nurses living together in a Chicago Community Hospital during 1966. It was to be the night of July 13th - 14th that Specks inadequacies were to come to resurface, killing them one-by-one throughout the night. This was to be another dark night in America's history that was to add his name to the list of serial killers that have tainted its name: Ted Bundy, the Hillside Strangler, the Boston Strangler and David Berkowitz etc, etc.

With typical relish the film industry around the world then immortalised his deeds, within a certain scope, onto celluloid; Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck (2007 V) by Michael Feifer, Okasareta hakui (Violated Angels) (1967) by K. Wakamatsu, Speck (2002) by Keith Walley and 10 to Midnight (1983) by J. Lee Thompson and starring Charles Bronson as the cop on his tail. The lesser known, and possibly the less seen, of these films portraying the acts of his crime is the actual war zone setting of Northern Ireland during the mid nineteen-seventies that is the Naked Massacre. Giving too, its conjunctive title Born for Hell, this latter title comes from a segment of a tattoo that was on Speck's arm, and in the end, was to be his undoing, the full tattoo reads: BORN TO RAISE HELL.

What is intriguing about Naked Massacre, with its West German production that whilst being shot in Hamburg and Studio Bendestorf, Germany, again, and being dubbed into English, it is the 1970's exterior Belfast locations that sets this film apart to give it an air of historical reference. Ironically, too or just sheer coincidence, as both, then, Germany and Ireland were divided by the political, and with Northern Ireland, religious beliefs. Seeing our protagonist wander the derelict war-torn streets of Belfast, with its IRA slogans and with the English army patrols and armoured vehicles setting an atmosphere of desperation and bleak overtones in an environment were faction Vs. faction and soldier Vs. stone throwing youths. An interesting reflective on harsh times in both English and Ireland's history.

German born Mathieu Carriere is the US' Vietnam vet' drifter Cain Adamson, reprising the role as Richard Speck, who, while trying to get back home, finds himself waiting for a passage back to the States. It is here, while waiting, kicking stones and hanging around the local pub, he finds the dwelling of the student nurses.

Denis Heroux the Montreal born film director, producer and here, writer and director, has our woman hater disturbing these residents with his grudges and psychosis that are brutal and disturbing. While, in general, a film of female degradation, with its grainy film stock and basic environment, these European writers' too, have given us a tale of woes from the perspective of an eroding mind of a war vet' who questions his own existence while very easily blames others for his predicament. This downward spiral of sanity leads to a very claustrophobic and tense world of hate and retribution to those he finds responsible most: the female of the spices.

Whilst being a work of fiction here, one has to remember that the narrative is, loosely, based around fact, and the reality is that this film is hard-hitting and plays testament to the weakness of this male mind and its overpowering of the enduring "weaker sex". As the night progresses, we see the completeness of his insanity; vile, ruthless and completely out of control.

We can see violations of the fairer sex in films as I Spit on Your Grave (1978), Last House on the Left (1972) and in hindsight, Salo; 120 Days of Sodom (1975), this too, Naked Massacre, is not pleasant viewing. One should not fall into the trap of thinking this as macabre entertainment but it being a visual nightmare of a state of mind that in one summer's night in a nurse's dormitory, in the USA, a little piece of it died. Most mercilessly.