Unmasked Part 25 (1988)

 There is something to be said for a film that features a Jason Voorhees "type" who shrugs his shoulders, eventually slumping them, while a screaming woman in a bathtub/shower can't escape a head smash into the wall while he kvetches about how life is just so pointless, overcome with an existential calamity. Whether he's debating the point of his existence with a father whose woe stems from not being as violent and evil like once upon a time or contemplating how much of a monster he is with the love of his life, a blind (and startlingly kinky) young woman he met at a party he crashes (killing everyone in the apartment complex) named Shelly (Fiona Evans); Jackson (Gregory Cox) encounters a real crossroads in his life, where he challenges the killing machine he has been for the previous twenty years since seeing his mother die at a camp in America after nearly drowning, living off the land in the woods until making it back to London to live with dear ole daddy. Ultimately, Jackson is resigned to his fate, accepting that he will always be a monster, making a horrifying decision towards Shelly when she announces to him her pregnancy.

I am the first to admit that when I saw the cover of "Unmasked Part 25" (1988), I wasn't anticipating the opening in late 80s London. I, instead, expected another camp slasher with a Jason-adjacent killer hacking away at folks who stumble upon his "neck of the woods". Instead, the film toys with containing some of the mythos of Jason without outright stealing exact details that would earn a copyright lawsuit or "cease and desist". This film also plays with the idea of "what if Jason stopped killing after meeting a woman who offers him tenderness, romance, and potentially sexual distraction from the norm he so used to?" while also making sure the slasher audience that might stumble upon this would get their savagery.

The makeup on Jackson reminded me more of Toxic Avenger, though, than unmasked Jason. For the money available to Anders Palm's team, the makeup on Cox isn't altogether a disappointment, though the "seams" show...they did the best they could with what they had. Cox waxes poetic (using the likes of Lord Byron, even) to Shelly, a literary intellectual because "all he could do while in the woods was read any books left behind by the 'departing' camp counselors"! Hearing a very English version of Jason Voorhees did amuse me to no end. Even though the film does give plenty of chum to the bloodthirstier slasher fans, "Unmasked Part 25" does have plenty of chatty Jackson and Shelly, in the bedroom, at the party after a slaughter, at the dinner table (!), and even by a fireplace. But my favorite scene of the couple might be when Shelly wants to try on a hockey mask in order to make Jackson feel more comfortable, with his reaction of frustration not as she had intended...Jackson in a Halloween store trying on hats and masks was a fun excursion. He feels too ugly inside and out to truly embrace a relationship, marriage, and family; Jackson's psychopathic ways just won't allow it. Never can Jackson converse with people, carry on with folks, as a scene in a bar around Shelly's pub friends reveals. He just doesn't feel good in his own skin, and being able to function within the normies appears quite difficult, if not possible.

So the body count bloodshed toll is epic: hatchet to the forehead (even pulled from the face revealing a bleeding, gaping wound), back of the head smashed into a wall, pitchfork to the stomach with plenty of lingering on the blood flow from wounds and mouth, ax to the stomach with plenty of emphasis on physical reaction including body jerk and blood, repeated shovel blows to the face/head warping the features, garrote strangulation, light bulb stand through the mouth (and out the back of the head), knife slices across the throat, and head squeeze leading to blood spurting from exploding eye socket. Lots of violence at the beginning and end of the film where Jackson murders pretty much all of Shelly's friends. The opening is at an apartment complex party, interrupting sex couples, and at the end when he invades a country home (and grounds) where a party awaits Shelly's arrival. Jackson even tells one young woman not to run because the results would just be her tripping and dying despite her efforts to flee! Apologizing to a victim he kills in the bathroom is very little consolation as she's a battered mess collapsed in a tub!

While a lot of the film feels very much like satire or parody -- Jackson is encouraged by Shelly to embrace her kinkier side, reacting in shock at her dildos, pleasure devices, "costume", and sex doll in the closet! -- the ending with Jackson disrupting a potential at real happiness with Shelly's announcement of being pregnant with his child through his "typical behavior" is rather tragic and sad. Though when Jackson drops to his knees under the marquee of a theater with "Hand of Death, Part 25: Jackson's Back" on the display as passersby look on quizzically while he wears his hockey mask and sobs sort of dulls some of that emotional impact, returning us to the sillier side of the film's presentation. The tone, I must admit, is often a bit "see-saw" and jarring, but I felt, for the most part, that Anders Palm wanted to poke fun at the "Friday the 13th" series (six up to the point he was making this film) in a unique and different way. Well, not just Jason Voorhees (and his story) but the slasher genre, not just deciding to keep his film formulaic as much as complement the bloodshed with a brand of contemplative self diagnosis, all the while addressing whether or not a killer could have more than just "hunt, stab, kill, and repeat". I definitely felt the London setting was quite a contrast to Jason popping out from behind trees or through doors...Jackson, in a hockey mask, with his head down and countenance quite overcome with angst and gloom, while treading plenty of blocks, sidewalks, streets, and alleys as locals pass by with curious and awestruck reactions is quite a different look for a slasher film, for sure. 3/5