10 80s Slasher Movies You May Not Have Seen
3. The Mutilator (1985)
The Mutilator follows Ed and his college buddies as they head to the beach to close up his father's condo. Unbeknownst to them, Ed's father is still around and plans on using his trusty set of weapons to dispatch each one of them.
The Mutilator is a tale of lingering rage and resentment finally brought to a boil, as Ed's drunkard father finally decides to slaughter his son for accidentally killing his wife years before. Ordinarily this would be quite a grim storyline, but The Mutilator is slathered in so much eighties cheese that it becomes an undeniably enjoyable watch.
Director Buddy Cooper does his best with what's at his disposal, cutting budgetary corners by shooting at his family's beach front motel. He opts to use his budget on some elements that would make The Mutilator stand tall above the crowd.
The pounding synth score and lashings and lashings of impressive practical gore - including disembowelment, decapitation and a hook to a particularly... sensitive area - make the movie prime slasher-cinema viewing. As an audience we await the next savage gore scene hungrily to see if it out-does the last.
The impressive effects and surprisingly tense finale make a terrible theme song and the virginal final girl trope forgivable. The Mutilator stands out from the crowd by somehow managing to be unapologetic with its gruesomeness but endearingly cheesy at the same time.