Sexy Killer   Starring: Macarena Gómez, Javier Ambrossi, Angel de Andrés López and Jimmy Barnatán Momentum Pictures RRP: £12.99 MP955D Certificate: 15 Available 14 September 2009

Barbara is a medical student at an exclusive university. Vain and materialistic, she is an extremely fashion-conscious but superficial individual who aspires to be the living embodiment of the doll Cindy Superstar. She is also a serial killer. Through the police investigation for the notorious Campus killer, Barbara meets Tomas, another student working in the campus morgue. Tomas and a scientist friend have developed a machine which translates brainwaves into images. When the bodies mount up they adapt the machine to display the last images seen by the victims. Unfortunately, there are unforeseen consequences of this process, which animates the corpses. Very soon there are a number of recently deceased victims seeking violent retribution...

The pre-credits sequence gave me high expectations for this film. Someone dressed in the Ghostface costume from Scream is rather clumsily stalking the girls’ changing room. Coming across a full-length mirror, the figure animatedly acts out slashing movements with its knife, until suddenly and quite unexpectedly it is slashed by its own reflection. What we at first believe to be the perpetrator turns out to be a victim, as he staggers away, his arm pouring with blood - only to be permanently dispatched by the real killer. This opening I found to be quite comical, but from this point onwards it quickly goes downhill.

Once the film begins proper, one thing is glaringly obvious: for a plot which is supposed to be both amusing and sexy, it proves to be neither. Barbara isn’t sexy and furthermore possesses no personality or charisma - essential traits when we’re expected to side or at least sympathise with the protagonist. There is no motive to the killings; they are practically conducted on a whim. It would have made more sense to portray this as a tongue-in-cheek murder mystery (with zombie vigilantes!), but not only is this a continuous succession of tedious events, we are obliged to hear it told via Barbara to one of her victims. It’s no exaggeration to say that I’m extremely surprised that after hearing five minutes of her story the captive isn’t begging to be put out of his misery.

Another problem is the subtitles. For a long time now I’ve advocated subtitled foreign films; I’ve seen so many excellent examples, and believe that most people are unnecessarily blinkered when it comes to reading on-screen text. In this Spanish example, however, the dialogue is spoken so quickly that the subtitles materialise and vanish before you’ve managed to read the first few words - and on top of that they appear against the background of an ever-changing picture, so at times can’t be read at all.

Whilst attempting to honour movies such as Re-Animator, American Psycho, and numerous zombie flicks, Sexy Killer still comes across as a damp squib. A heartless and emotionless exercise. This is one instance when less isn’t more.

2

Ty Power