I've seen way, way, WAY too many B-Movies. I've seen all kinds: Gore films with the worst production values ever, so-bad-they're-good films shot on home videos, and films where the entire film crew was probably on some mind-altering substance during the entire production. However, no film can compare to this film. It's not that the director is throwing a bunch of random weird moments at you. No, not at all -- there aren't a lot of things going on in this movie, in particular. But what IS here is just so completely left-field in the way they handled it. I guess it's hard to describe without you actually seeing the film, but imagine combining your Hugh Grant romance movie with Bloodsucking Freaks or something, and you will probably get an idea of what this is about.

Case in point, the movie opens with the GORIEST OPENING DEATH SCENE EVER! The killer rips a guy's face off and then punches through his chest and takes out his heart! This scene just shocked me to no end, and I kept rewinding it to make sure I just witnessed what I thought I witnessed. So, already, 4 minutes or so into the movie, I just witnessed the goriest opening death scene in history, and I'd like to think that the creators of this film would take this element even further in the movie. Well, that doesn't really happen. You see, the killer then proceeds to kill people in less gory ways... and... then the film spends about 40 minutes detailing his love life with a blind woman.

And the love life with the blind woman involves a man who sort of resembles the Toxic Avenger wearing "sexy clothes" like silk red boxers and stuff and making really awkward love to the blind woman. Then, they walk on the beach and discuss life. THEN, just when you forgot that this is a horror movie, more killing! And the killing's kind of pick back up (it's almost as if they used all their budget on the first scene and didn't have any money left to do any more killing for a few weeks, so they just spent those weeks filming the love scenes crap),and the last killing is by far one of the most mean-spirited things I've ever seen (spoilers, if you care): The killer slits his blind girlfriend's throat for no apparent reason right after she says "I love you" and then she screams, "NO, NO, NOOOOOOO." It's quite mean. Quite. (no more spoilers)

The back of the box says that this is supposed to be a spoof, but -- besides the fact that the main killer, "Jackson", is wearing a hockey mask and the title has a "part 25" in it -- you couldn't really tell that from the movie. Probably the weirdest film ever.

Well "many years ago" we used to rent cheap movies every Tuesday as they were about 10 Dkr (2 us dollars) each. We saw a lot of bad movies and some brilliant ones. One of them was Unmasked. Or "Hand of death" as it was called here. Took me ages to find it under the real title. It is so bad that it is kind of fun. When he ends up with that blind girl and is pretty upset with her "sexual preferences".. but has no problem with killing people.. had us in stitches.

This "movie" is perfect for killing some time with a few friends and some beer..

"Unmasked Part 25" has got a great premise. The London-lensed film concerns Jackson, an immortal slasher killer who hides his hideously deformed face behind a hockey mask. However, Jackson is tired of the slasher game. Brutally murdering partying, half-naked teenagers has lost its zeal. He's ready to settle down, find someone who loves him for who he is inside. The film can be summed up as "What if Jason had a midlife crisis?" It's honestly the kind of story I would have loved as a teenager, when I spent a lot of time writing jokey, splatstick stories about horror archetypes in non-horror scenarios.

Disappointingly, "Unmasked Part 25" doesn't live up to its fantastic concept. The movie has got exactly three great scenes in it. After executing a house of twenty-something partiers, the killer comes upon a blind woman. She starts talking to him, showing no fear, taking him back to her apartment, coaxing him out of his grunting, speechless mindset. At first, a high-pitched, British accent coming from behind a hockey mask is rather amusing. That first encounter between the two, where they bond over their mutual status as outcast, Jackson occasionally dropping hints about his particular life-style, is good stuff. If the movie had cut off at the twenty minute point, I would be lift with a smile on my face.

Instead, "Unmasked Part 25" rolls on. Jackson talks a lot. He goes on about his childhood with his abusive father, and years in the woods around his camp. He returns home to his dad, who tries to convince him he's only a monster, even though Jackson thinks he's in love. He complains about his problems to his dad and girlfriend. A scene where he winds up in a bar with some drunk jerks drags terribly. By playing the maniac's existential ennui a little too straight, "Unmasked Part 25" becomes a slog. I would hope, if he could talk and reflect on his life, Jason Voorhees wouldn't be this much of a whiny baby.

The romantic subplot doesn't quite work either. A scene of Shirley and Jackson out for a stroll through town ends with them in a Halloween costume shop. I think there's supposes to be jokes there but the sequence is deafeningly dour. We get a peak into the killer's sex life and learn that his girlfriend is into BDSM, a frankly baffling scene. The script seems to think the premise of "a Jason expy who can't stand to tie his girlfriend up" is enough to support a protracted, extended sequence. There's even a long moment of the guy just walking around London, not doing much.

"Unmasked Part 25" tries to have it both ways. As Friday the 13th rolls around, Jackson is compelled to go on a murderous spree, finding a troupe of drunken Shakespearean actors to slash through. (Rather perversely, the film credits Shakespeare as a screenwriter.) The movie briefly comes alive again as Jackson calls his victims out for partaking in horror clichés as he offs them. The brief moment of the masked killer sighing despondently, surrounded by mangled corpses, gets a bigger laugh then the entire rest of the film. Once again, the movie goes moody and self-serious for the last scene. It's not Jackson's brutal murders that make him unlikable but instead his constant whining.

"Unmasked Part 25" will test the patience of most slasher fans. By the standards of grainy VHS-tape low budget slasherdom, the gore is actually quite good. Looking at the film, you can see a much wittier, insightful, and far more consistent in there somewhere. Alas.