Nikos the Impaler is without a doubt Schnaas best film. After his Violent S*** movies and the relatively tame Demonium, Nikos the Impaler is a breath of fresh air in the otherwise dying genre of the gore film.
The movie stars Andreas Schnaas as Nikos the Impaler, a barbarian from Romania that history has forgotten. In the beginning, we see him killed by a group of peasants and he eats his own guts. Nasty, but only the beginning. He swears he will return and in typical horror movie fashion, he sure does.
He is brought back at an art gallery that is having a display of Romanian artwork. Once resurrected, he starts chopping up everyone in sight. No one is safe from him, as he splits college students, gallery guests, and the elderly into gory chunks. One guy has his face chopped in half. Another has her entire body split in two. Very good stuff all around!
After a while, Nikos takes it to the streets and starting causing a mess all over New York. He goes to a health club, a movie theater, a dyke bar, a video store, and wanders the streets killing anyone and everyone he finds. I think this when the movie really shines, as it starts getting really funny. That's right, funny.
Nikos is essentially a comedy in the vein of Peter Jacksons Dead/Alive. There is so much gore, you simply have to laugh at it. It surpasses being disgusting and turns into a weird slapstick comedy that is simply impossible to resist.
The acting in the movie is pretty bad, but there is no reason to care. Schnaas says ten words in the whole movie, most of which you cannot understand. Felissa Rose of Sleepaway Camp does a good job as the only straight-faced character (until the NINJAS show up!). Joe Zaso of Demonium is a major ham, but it works well in the surreal surroundings. The college guys are very funny, although most of their "sweet" and "dude" dialogue seems ad-libbed. The gallery guests are all extremely varied. Some work, some don't. The gallery owner seems to have trouble with her lines and looks like a older Barbie doll from the 1940s. The art critic chews up his scenes with lots of profanity. The fat guy slurs his lines with plenty of machismo. The cops all seem really funny.
All in all, the film is pretty amazing. It is painfully obvious how low budget the film is, but they seem to stretch every dollar to its absolut limit. The police wear poofy hats that look like were civil war props. A superimposed New York skyline is hilariously out of place behind screaming characters. And the final showdown takes place in an alley that looks like it came from an old stage production.
Don't let this make you stray, though. These faults are by no means bad things. They make the movie even more fun to watch. Nikos the Impaler is truly one of those pictures that is so deliciously bad, its good. Stereotypical characters, cheesy plot, wacky gore... a real b-movie fan simply cannot ask for more these days. This movie is the least-trendy, most in-your-face film I have seen in ages.
Good work, Andreas Schnaas! Now make me a sequel!
The movie stars Andreas Schnaas as Nikos the Impaler, a barbarian from Romania that history has forgotten. In the beginning, we see him killed by a group of peasants and he eats his own guts. Nasty, but only the beginning. He swears he will return and in typical horror movie fashion, he sure does.
He is brought back at an art gallery that is having a display of Romanian artwork. Once resurrected, he starts chopping up everyone in sight. No one is safe from him, as he splits college students, gallery guests, and the elderly into gory chunks. One guy has his face chopped in half. Another has her entire body split in two. Very good stuff all around!
After a while, Nikos takes it to the streets and starting causing a mess all over New York. He goes to a health club, a movie theater, a dyke bar, a video store, and wanders the streets killing anyone and everyone he finds. I think this when the movie really shines, as it starts getting really funny. That's right, funny.
Nikos is essentially a comedy in the vein of Peter Jacksons Dead/Alive. There is so much gore, you simply have to laugh at it. It surpasses being disgusting and turns into a weird slapstick comedy that is simply impossible to resist.
The acting in the movie is pretty bad, but there is no reason to care. Schnaas says ten words in the whole movie, most of which you cannot understand. Felissa Rose of Sleepaway Camp does a good job as the only straight-faced character (until the NINJAS show up!). Joe Zaso of Demonium is a major ham, but it works well in the surreal surroundings. The college guys are very funny, although most of their "sweet" and "dude" dialogue seems ad-libbed. The gallery guests are all extremely varied. Some work, some don't. The gallery owner seems to have trouble with her lines and looks like a older Barbie doll from the 1940s. The art critic chews up his scenes with lots of profanity. The fat guy slurs his lines with plenty of machismo. The cops all seem really funny.
All in all, the film is pretty amazing. It is painfully obvious how low budget the film is, but they seem to stretch every dollar to its absolut limit. The police wear poofy hats that look like were civil war props. A superimposed New York skyline is hilariously out of place behind screaming characters. And the final showdown takes place in an alley that looks like it came from an old stage production.
Don't let this make you stray, though. These faults are by no means bad things. They make the movie even more fun to watch. Nikos the Impaler is truly one of those pictures that is so deliciously bad, its good. Stereotypical characters, cheesy plot, wacky gore... a real b-movie fan simply cannot ask for more these days. This movie is the least-trendy, most in-your-face film I have seen in ages.
Good work, Andreas Schnaas! Now make me a sequel!