The Mutilator (1984)

The story behind The Mutilator is quite familiar.  Someone becomes interested in movies and, upon doing research, finds out that the most profitable films are horror films.  This is the early 1980s, so specifically slashers.  They somehow pull together the funds and, with family, friends and a whole lot of chutzpah, manage to make the movie.  It doesn't do gangbusters but turns a profit due to the initial low budget, and eventually becomes a cult classic. 

In this case our budding filmmaker is Buddy Cooper, who wrote, produced and directed a movie that was originally to be called Fall Break.  Current prints, though marketed as The Mutilator, have that title, and the corresponding theme song gets played over the beginning and end.  John Douglass provided some additional help with the directing.  Costs were cut as Cooper's family owned a nearby motel where cast and crew stayed, and he even managed to get some amateur actors that would occasionally pop up in other low-budget films.  The problem is, like so many outsiders making their first film, framing and pacing were not Cooper's high points. 

As a child Ed (Trace Cooper) accidentally shoots his mother (Pamela Weddle Cooper) while trying to clean his father's (Jack Chatham) guns as a birthday surprise.  This leads to a lifelong emotional gap between the two, and grown-up Ed (Matt Mitler) is not happy to be asked by his father to close up his beachfront condo for the season.  However, his girlfriend Pam (Ruth Martinez) and friends Mike (Morey Lamply), Linda (Frances Sherman), Sue (Connie Rogers) and Ralph (Bill Hitchcock) think it's a great getaway for their upcoming break from college. 

The group arrives at the condo to find it trashed but proceed to try to have a nice weekend anyway.  What they don't know is that Ed's father hasn't left.  Rather, he is in the garage and, still nursing a grudge against his son, decides that now is the time to go on a killing spree.  A big game trophy hunter at heart, he decides to add a few new heads to his collection.

I know the reason that this has a cult following.  Edmund Ferrell was hired to do the makeup and effects, and he and his team come up with some great work.  Normally a movie on this level would have laughable, Herschell Godon Lewis style gore.  Here we have work almost on the level of Tom Savini.  Cooper knew what he had and, although it did the movie's box office no favors, he initially refused any cuts to bring The Mutilator down to an R rating.  At some point he relented, but it is the original that earned the movie its reputation among horror fans.  

The problem is that those few effects are the only thing that makes the movie interesting.  The characters may be college age, and the killer is pretty much known by the audience from the beginning, but beyond that this is a run-of-the-mill slasher.  The acting is mediocre, the lighting often bad, and many times shots go on way too long.  There is a lot of tedious dialog to try to set up the plot, most of it unnecessary because the opening scene is all we need to know about why Big Ed is crazy.  The soundtrack, outside of the cheesy and annoying theme song, is decent, but not out of character for this type of film.  It is unfortunate that this is such a slog to get through as with some better editing and more focus on either being a horror or a comedy this would be one of those rare forgotten classics.  

The Mutilator (1984)

Time: 86 minutes

Starring: Matt Mitler, Ruth Martinez, Bill Hitchcock, Connie Rogers, Frances Sherman, Morey Lampley, Jack Chatham

Directors: Buddy Cooper, John Douglass