A grouchy surgeon (the grouchiest of gentlemen, George Kennedy) storms out of a surgery when his colleague dares to question his mistake. He stabs his patient a couple times before telling his colleague to do it himself. He then learns that his medical research grant has gone through but the board is denying it because they are concerned about the doctor’s morals. He replays this argument with the head of the board as he drives off and conveniently explains his brain transplant for coma patients studies through inner monologue before getting into a nasty car accident. Seven years pass and the now hideously disfigured Dr. Bruckner is still in a coma at the very hospital he caused so many problems at. Orderlies place clown masks on the coma ward and talk shit about Bruckner who wakes up and is pretty pissed, breaking the neck of a poor nurse just doing her rounds. The vastly unlikable Peter (one of those awful orderlies) heads home to act like a complete shit to his parents and have a boring New Year’s Eve. His father notices that his driver’s seat headrest has been cut by something very sharp, Peter denies doing it and the stalking POV points in the direction of the doctor following the young dope home. Old ugly mug begins murdering folks in the well-off neighborhood. The incredibly cute girl next door Amy (Nada van Nie) is the focus of Peter’s smug affection and he’s happy to see (spy) that she and her boyfriend are having a rough patch. He attempts to seduce her with his saxophone when he invites himself over. As most Dutch youngsters are known to do, they play music together along with her little brother. The sax, bass and piano trio perform some elevator music and the pouting boyfriend heads back to the family home where his parents were just slaughtered. He eats some chicken and then heads back to Amy’s to catch her smooching with Peter for reasons I can’t fathom… he’s honestly the fuckin’ worst and I have a bad feeling they’re setting up his ass to be the hero. Fortunately, Peter gets sliced up by the killer who is hiding in his closet, regrettably the deadly doctor gets distracted by a news report on himself and Peter manages to survive. Fuck. I ask for one fucking thing. Amy throws on a comfy sweater and attempts to survive into the new year. A lazy slasher plot is given life by a parade of characters with a true dearth of intelligence and a seriously slumming George Kennedy barely shows up to a laughable degree. It’s almost impressive just how unlikable the hero is but that washes out because in the end that only means we have to spend so much time with him as he scumbags his way through the movie, sucking all of the charm and good graces out of any screen time he abuses. Wretched pacing also has this bad boy feeling longer than it runs. At least Amy is cute, some of the splatter is graphic, the brain-damaged psycho surgeon is pretty goofy looking and the fireworks-heavy demise of the villain is suitably stupid. Seriously, fuck you Peter. I wish you were dead.
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