Intensive Care (1991)

Around 10-11 years after it was hot and trendy to make a slasher, Dorna van Rouveroy decided to make the most generic European slasher ever. So generic it's really no difference between this one and any other slasher made between 88-89 in the US, home of the slice 'n' dice cinema. Armed with a script that three people worked on and a pointless, five minute cameo by George Kennedy (who during this time signed every contract handed to him without looking at the script) and some of the most ridiculous post-eighties haircuts ever. Yes, this is Intensive Care. One of the most butchered Dutch movies ever made.

Doctor Bruckner (George Kennedy) is a very angry and bitter man, with high thoughts about himself. When a less important doctor implies that he's done something wrong at the operating table, the good doctor just stabs the inside of the patient a couple of times and let the younger doctor solve the problem. Then he leaves, drives away in his car and.... hits a truck! An accident that sends him in a coma (where he get's shorter and very much slimmer)!

Seven years later and some wacky nurses decides to have fun with the comatose patients, puts funny masks on them - which obviously awakens Bruckner, grumpier than ever! He kills the staff and then goes out for a killing spree at a nearby town...

That's about it. Sure, we follow some meatbags living in the houses, among them the girl-favorite no. 1 from that time, Koen Wauters as the saxophone playing Peter. He looks like a Romanian transvestite, sick of tuberculosis. I guess that was the fad at that time. He, his girlfriend and her annoying little brother also plays some music for us. Terrible.

The biggest sin of Intensive Care is that it's so awfully nothing-special. There's nothing that differs it from the American counterparts. Nothing, except maybe the ugly actors (but we're talking Europeans á the early nineties here, so it's kinda normal) and the music number. Bruckner wakes up, looks completely different than Kennedy, kills people and then he dies in the end. Happy happy joy joy.

But this generic feeling of boring crap also makes it quite entertaining, like a lot of the poor slashers being made the years before this one. It's quite gory and bloody and the effects are decent. We're treated to a throat-slitting, a knife in the eye, a drill to head and some stabbings and stuff like that. The movie looks OK, but with the cinematography of a Scandinavian family movie and music from a German Scheiße production. The editing is surprisingly good with some effective moments of violence and chases. Not bad actually, I'll give them that.

Intensive Care shares more than a few names with the Dick Maas classic Amsterdamned, but where the latter one is witty and well-made, Intensive Care just is unintentional funny and unoriginal. But the gore and the entertainment value is still quite high. I recommend it for you who have nothing left to watch...