Sexy Killer: You'll Die For Her (2009)

12th Oct 09





Plot
A serial killer falls in love. And some zombies are thrown in for good measure.

Review
Opening with a Spanish University ladies dormitory shower scene, the kind of clichéd opportunity to get some gratuitous nudity in to the movie that none of us will ever tire of, the movie quickly goes on to introduce Barbara, the title character. She's a young, sexy medical student with a rather bizarre hobby of serial killing, and a massive ego prevalent in her long monologues to the camera detailing how and why she murders so ambivalently, Man Bites Dog style, if you can remember that. She's also the first to admit her crimes but is never taken seriously. I mean, who would believe such a young, sassy thing could possibly be capable of such atrocities?

At the heart of it though, she's just a normal girl looking for love, which is where young heartthrob Tomas comes in to it. After a confusion over their respective familiarity with dead bodies (she tends to generate them, while Tomas researches using them) a strange but enthralling romance ensues, while in the background the bodies from Barbara's killing spree mount up as the end of the film looms. Tomas, on the other hand, continues his experiments with a machine he's created that captures the last image a dead animal sees, but things take a plot enriching turn when he and a friend discover feeding ecstasy to the corpse before applying the machine actually revives it instead. They're amazed when 2 hamsters come back to life in this way so, pushing it a bit, they go for a deceased human subject and revive the Chief of Police, who was recently murdered at Barbara's hands . However, he's livid that he can't remember his killer's face, so he insists they revive all the other victims in the hope that one of them does remember. Then Tomas spots out of the corner of his eye that the recently revived hamsters have now turned on and eaten the other hamsters in the cage. You can guess what happens next.

So, it's partly a serial killer movie, partly a zombie flick, kinda like the writer/director team of Paco Cabezas (The Appeared) and Miguel Martí (Fin de Curso) couldn't decide which to make so figured they'd just roll them both in to one film. And as much as that sounds like a recipe for disaster, Sexy Killer is so not. In fact, it's one of the smartest horror-comedies to come out of Spain in a long time. (Do you remember Tuno Negro? It's much better than that.)

Snappily directed, wonderfully paced, smartly acted and very colourful to boot, it's hard not to like Sexy Killer unequivocally. You'll laugh, you'll wince and you'll mutter "No way..." to yourself a good few times as you catch loving crafter cliché after cliché and horror movie in jokes splash on to the screen unashamedly. There's not a great deal of nudity after the opening shower scene tease but the flick is very sexy, not least because of Macarena Gómez's delightful performance as the twisted Barbara. But above all the movie is just very funny, rattles along effortlessly without ever getting dull and is, to summise, an old school horror fans dream (look for the Romero and Evil Dead references). This is the main reason why most of the reviews you'll read, and Alan Jones' cover quote on the DVD, all include the phrase 'crowd pleaser', and I guess that includes this review now too. Thoroughly recommended.

Posted by
Jim



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