Body Count (1986); Ruggero Deodato

 

I just wanted to include this dialogue exchange as proof of what I brought up in the Old Negative Review post:

"I'll bet it snows. This isn't good for my ovaries, Sid"

"Ever since that trip to the abortion clinic, your reproductive system has been very weird."

"I know she stole one of my chocolate bars. Thought I wouldn't notice that you thieving little witch?"

"I sure did, Sidney. Is that all you think about, is chocolate?"

"Nobody calls me Sidney except my mother and Oral Roberts.. Mostly I think about Frank Sinatra and Novocaine. I need a chocolate bar for my energy."

"Energy for what, Sid?"

"Energy for making you my own, my little vixen of love."

"Boring."

"Life doesn't agree with you."

Yes, the above exchange was shared by friends (two gals, one guy who serves as the clown of the film) in a RV driving through Colorado (Italy, actually), eventually stopping off at a campgrounds closed due to a tragedy of four deaths a decade plus prior. 

Below are kind of what I think Deodato and his writers wanted as a close tie to camp slashers in past years. I guess fans might feel that including these identifiable traits, it could be attractive due to the familiarity. 

You'd think the film, when it starts, will be set at camp with all these teenagers, playing basketball, having relationship fights, or planning to make out in secret. But a series of murders (including two we see at the beginning, and two later, talked about by the daughter's father and a separate policeman not involved with Charles Napier played by Rassimov; sadly, Rassimov factors little in the overall plot) closes that camp, with those who run it -- David Hess and Mimsy Farmer, whose characters are struggling in marriage -- living isolated lives from seemingly everyone else. Though Charles Napier, the local sheriff, is having a long term affair with Farmer, a relationship that could fuel the cause of why a killer, wearing a Native American Shaman mask, equipped mostly with a meat knife, is attacking anyone in the general area of the camping grounds. An important moment came when a little boy, the son of Farmer and Hess, is behind a log right after the first couple is butchered.

So essentially two groups arrive at the camping grounds. Rowdy, randy young adults in the RV and a trio in a truck (and motorbike), showing up at the camping grounds to a very grumpy Hess telling them to leave the property. Fortunate for them was the folks in the RV picking up Hess' son, with Farmer stepping in to undermine his rules of keeping the grounds closed. All of them would have been better off if they had left as Hess insisted.

I couldn't help but think that Bodycount (as it was titled in the credits when I watched the film on Tubi TV) would be an ideal Vinegar Syndrome release down the road. I don't think this film has had a solid release at all and I felt fortunate to see this again after an ugly version someone was kind of enough to send me back in 2012. It has the ingredients of a slasher film you'd think an audience of a type would consider potentially attractive. It has a lot of nudity -- some fully nude women showering, or in states of undress, in the process of making out, with even a goofy guy always the subject of comic relief, pushed into the home of Hess and Farmer, interrupting their supper! -- and definitely lives up to the film's title. A lot of folks are stabbed. There is this house that is abandoned in the woods Deodato keeps a major focus on in the film, too. A particular moment has one of the victims looking into the mirror after a workout, with the killer breaking through it to grab her, pulling her into the hole of the wall, using a piece of the glass to stab her...this, to me, is how you do a jump scare. So there is good stuff here and there, even if this has nothing new in terms of characters or plot. Wherever they shot the film, I do think this Italy looks Colorado enough. By 1986, though, the slasher genre was on its way towards decline, due to so many damn films previously. It is hard not to just feel like this is more of the same. And that goes for so many slasher films in 1986 - 1989. I still watch them, though, because with so many of them, you never know if there might just be that diamond in the ruff. I'm not sure, though, Bodycount is that diamond. But it might just be a shiny enough rock to at least entertain.

But that dialogue, though...woof. The characters are really silly and what is dubbed in English makes them sound even worse. Will this be good for laughs? Perhaps. I had a good enough time with this even if the film is nothing significant. With that plethora of slashers to wave through, I'm not sure this film lays that imprint on you. But with Vinegar Syndrome behind it, you never know.

The love triangle where Hess is choking Farmer, Farmer hits Hess in the head, Farmer drags Hess all the way to a cabin, Napier eventually encountering Farmer, and Hess eventually hitting Farmer in the face (killing her); this feels equal parts important and oddly intrusive because so much of the film is about the young adults/victims. But this story ultimately means a lot to Deodato and the screenwriters as they keep going back to it. Hess in the woods at the end, being attacked by the Shaman spirit (the camp built on a burial ground), and the closing credits sure was an out-of-left-field "twist". These slashers can be quite outrageous. 2/5