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The Age of Commercialism

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A pair of Miami cops, Kat (Kay Lenz) and Pete (Wayne Crawford), investigate a series of grisly murders in the city's Nigerian community, in which the victims have been decapitated, their heads stolen. The pair's enquiries lead them to believe that a shape-shifting African demon is behind the slayings, which puts them both in danger of losing their own heads to the supernatural being.There's potential for a lot of over-the-top fun with the notion of a Nigerian demon lopping off people's heads in Florida, but Headhunter fails to do the idea justice, the meandering script focusing way too much on Pete's boring relationship issues with his wife, and on routine police work.Director Francis Schaeffer handles his visuals well enough - the film looks stylish throughout - and the decapitations, when they happen, are entertaining, but for much of the time the drama makes the film feel like a made-for-TV movie, at least until the rousing finale which makes up somewhat for all of the dull stuff. After discovering his wife and her girlfriend dead (some decent gore in this scene), Pete purchases a chainsaw and rushes to rescue Kat from the demon (which we finally get to see in its true form). Pete and Kay battle the monster, successfully dismembering it, but a final scene sees the demon brought back to life by its Nigerian worshippers, ready for the sequel that never happened.

The constant bad swipes this low-rent South American horror film receives might be justified, but I didn't think it was entirely terrible. Mostly wooden, and more often vapid you could say, with the occult idea being push aside for lame (and oddly placed) soapy domestic quibbles of the two police detectives (likeably played by Wayne Crawford and Kay Lenz) who are chasing a killer that unusually decapitates its victims, and might be something supernatural of African origins. Cool! No not cool. This offbeat angle is left high and dry, and just frustrates with its sloppy pace and bland script. Quite a drag! Well up until the frenetic climax. Having the two leads being fully developed is fine, but still it leaves us with too many questions about our ugly looking demon. The underwritten premise is randomly disjointed and terribly unclear and inconsistent in its motives. Never does it become much fun, as its light on suspense, action and gratuitous splatter. Nor does it have any sort of camp value. It needed to go out on a limb to achieve excitement, because it sadly underplays itself and goes about things seriously. The convincing location choices however, seemed to invoke an effective atmospheric tenor, and Hans Kuhle's free-flowing camera-work is well done. Julian Laxton's howling music score has a thumping, menacing tone that won't let up. The rubber demon looks tacky and bulky, but decent for such a budget. Watchable fluff, but not one to lose your head over.

Damn, it's sad to see a movie fail so miserably when you can just feel the potential it had. This easily could have been a decent modern-day horror-flick about voodoo and an interesting demon on the loose chopping off heads. At least in two or three scenes there's a bit of suspense to be felt (I admit, it's not that much, but still...) and the demon's make-up is decent. The fact that he runs around decapitating people is a nice bonus too. However...I always admire the fact when scriptwriters of horror-stories try to give the main characters a bit of background (that doesn't happen much in horror). But here it really is a bit too much. I mean, the cop's ex-wife turned out to be lesbian, so then he starts hitting on his female partner who's dating a fellow-cop which wants to spend more quality time with her? Come on. Instead they should have made the demon a much bigger and menacing character. Where does he come from? Why and by who is he summoned? Why does he chop off all those heads of seemingly unrelated victims? Are there more of his kind? Nothing do we learn about this demon. But he does look cool. And he also seems to be able to shape-shift, but that concept isn't really worked out either.For a moment it looked like this movie was going to have a suspenseful bloody end fight. The set-up was present but the fight is over before you know it. What a waste. Even the over-all acting wasn't too bad. You can easily sit through this flick, but you'll forget about it as easily. So don't bother. But if you have a thing for sword-swinging demons then I won't stop ya.

A cop (Wayne Crawford) whose wife is having an affair on him finds himself facing off against an African demon that has just arrived in the USA and is cutting off everyone's head. Kay Lenz is his partner and love interest. This film is very crudely made and lifelessly acted, but somehow or another it manages to move along at such a fast pace and also manages to be very entertaining and exciting the entire running time that you really don't care.