A girl stands in the middle of the road, gets hit, and ends up sharing an ambulance with a serial killer who allegedly died in the electric chair. Well, he didn't die. And he is looking for the girl (Sara Wexler), which is coincidentally fairly easy, being in the same hospital.
Some of this movie is pretty good. The electric chair scene is alright, the coroner scenes are pretty good. And I especially have to give a hand to Robert Englund. I was afraid he would show up for five minutes and then disappear, or give a lackluster performance to get a paycheck (like Jeffrey Combs and Lance Henriksen seem to be doing lately). But Englund gives a great performance, and plays a hero brilliantly and with more passion than I've seen from him since "Slashed Dreams". Thank you, Mr. Englund.
The plot is shaky. A killer who survives the chair... well, I want to reference "Shocker", but should I? (If the director has a Shockeresque killer and casts Robert Englund, does he have a Wes Craven fetish?) Anyway, it's something hard to pull off because there are already many immortal slashers out there. Further ,the plot is just weird -- the string of coincidences around the Sara Wexler character... I don't know. Hard to believe.
And what's with the ripping out of the hearts? Okay, I get it -- he's a "heart stopper". But he puts his hand through a chest -- bones and all -- and pulls the heart out without blood and with neatly sawed off arteries. Weak, very weak. Maybe I can believe this in "Temple of Doom", but not here.
So yeah. I might be a little harsh. After all ,this isn't pure rubbish like "Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis" or any number of other films I could name. But I felt I was short-changed as a viewer. You set me up for what could be a great supernatural slasher flick and then really drop the ball at the key moments. Thanks a lot. I make no recommendations for this film to anyone.
