Headless

"Headless" is one of those grubby little horror movies that looks like it was made with a few effects, gallons of blood, and people who owed the filmmaker a favour.

It's sickening and tedious in equal measure.

The 'plot' is something to do about a depraved maniac who was kept in a cage by his sadistic mother and now wears a mask and kills people.

The movie is actually less concerned with the 'kills' than what he does to the bodies afterwards. Repeatedly, he decapitates the corpses (hence the title, I guess) and then appears to have sex with the neck hole. He also often removes the bodies' right eye and eats it, the camera showing white fluid from the eyeball running down his mask.

Something else about the movie, which is easily forgotten because it adds nothing to the experience, is that it is presented as a lost film from 1978. The only possible use for this contrivance is that it justifies the movie's dingy production value and the fact that the entire movie seems to have been filmed through mud - as today's filmgoers may believe movies made in the seventies actually were.

Hell, the original "Halloween" and "Last House on the Left" were actually filmed in the seventies and on a shoe-string budget, and they didn't look this bad.

I write this review as a horror fan, seeking to inform other horror fans of what to expect with this film.

I'll be brief: like so many others here, I am drawn to extreme cinema, with visceral, shocking sequences of gore and violence. Honestly, I'm even down for cheesy, B-Movie style special effects. I love practical special effects, I love slashers, I love horror, and I love films that seek to push the limits. Naturally, Headless made its way onto my radar by seemingly checking all of these boxes. Like others, I had heard a lot of hype about this film, and was very excited to get my hands on it. (Minor spoilers ahead)

First the positive: The first 10ish minutes of this film are truly shocking and captivating moments of violent cinema. There are some unforgettable images in there, such as the killer sitting underneath the blood pouring from a body above him, the removal and eating of eyes, the infamous "head-hump", etc. The grain-y, 70s film visuals really work here, and the vibe is chilling and effective. A grim, fantastic start.

Now the bad: Not only does the film go absolutely nowhere here, but it's shown you most of its tricks and surprises right out of the gate. There's more eye-eating, more decapitation, more severed-head-copulation, but its nowhere near as effective as the first sequence. The directing gets really questionable here too, especially during kill scenes (disorienting is one thing...sloppy is another entirely). There's a backstory, but its pretty boring and predictable. There are other characters, but the cheesy acting and dialogue rarely comes off as funny/charming, and is almost always forgettable. It becomes clear almost immediately that this idea cannot sustain a full film. And yet here we are.

At the end of the day, this film's cardinal sin is simple: it's boring. Despite all of the gore and torture, this film will really struggle to capture your attention, and for a film like this, that's really not a good sign. It just goes to show that there needs to be SOMETHING more in order for a film to be truly shocking, sick and scary, and that "something" is not recycling the same 5 special effects tricks over and over.

The first 10 minutes are worth your time. After that, switch to something else. Truly wasted potential.

I've taken a long break from the ultra violent flicks and needed something good to pull me back in. Glad I started here. Make to look like a lost slasher film from the heyday of popularity (mid 80s) yet pulls no punches with it's brutality and the disturbing nature of the killer. Given enough backstory into the nameless psycho to know why he does what he does yet let's us still guess where he went from there. It's a wonderfully sick film that will stick with you for a while.

This film was everything that a lover of the slasher sub-genre enjoys: gore, nudity, blood, and limbs being sawed off. The film overall was pretty typical, but it held a few pretty unique tweaks that you don't see very often in a slasher film. I wont give too much away, but just how the killer toys with Jess at the end, and the childhood story throughout the film are cool little bits that made this movie stand out. However, the one complaint that I just can't get over is the sub par acting. Now, not get me wrong, I understand that this was supposed to be a lost 70s slasher film (which were notorious for bad acting), but it just got distracting. If you haven't seen the film Found, which this movie is more or less from, I would suggest watching it as it supplements Headless as a whole.

I don't get the hype that some people write about. The movie is average and somewhat boring. The acting and dialogue (for what there is) are not so good. The story is also dull and gets repetitive. But, there are also some good things to say. Practical fx are on point and the music is well done.

Indeed a movie for real lovers of the genre, but it isn't groundbreaking.