Someone's in the house. He's watching. He's creeping round, only you can't see him. He's watching you from the walls. He's right behind you now. Looking over your shoulder. He wants the remote control. He's a bad boy. He wants to watch bad movies. Bad bad Ronald...

Monday, September 26, 2011

PEEPHOLE REVIEW: The Exterminator (1980 -- Synapse Films)

A Cop with a Death Wish
 Yes, another title in the long list of Death Wish knock offs.  But this one has the scene with the bad guy being made into a nice ground chuck burger.  Fairly low on original plot and character shading, but it's a far cry better than many of the revenge flicks that cluttered the shelves at the VHS rental ship.  It's loads more fun, too.
I'm gonna have to put an 80% fat label on you, big guy
Robert Ginty (retro TV hounds will recognize him from The Paper Chase) plays a Vietnam vet whose post traumatic stress is amped up when a war buddy is made a vegetable of by a pack of thugs, called the "Ghetton Ghouls."  Bucking the trend of beefed up, tough guy vigilante types, Ginty pulls back the reigns, working in the more mellow mood of Jan-Michael Vincent in White Line Fever
Man, don't harsh my mellow... or they'll be a firestorm
Director James Glickenhaus steers The Exterminator from the regular street fighting man action of the other vigilante films, by ratcheting up the violence with some real sick-n-twisted kills.  It's like Ginty is an unmasked version of Jason Vorhees, taking quiet pleasure in each gory kill.  Synapse Films did a great job restoring these scenes to their original nastiness, and delivering the cult classic in a nifty Blu-ray & DVD set.

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