D V D C R Y P T

FANTOM KILER 2

Directed by Roman Nowicki
Music by Frank Cossak
Cast: Eliza Borecka, Katarzyna Zelnik, Magda Szymborska & Andrej Jass

1999/82 mins/Color/Dolby Stereo
Various Ratios/Polish/Poland/NTSC Region 0

Review from the Teraz Films DVD

A year has passed since the FANTOM KILER got away with murdering three women. He has returned, with the murder of a prostitute, and from the get go, detective Uri Polanski shows he is a misogynistic asshole - ".atleast they're paying the proper price!" (yes the subtitles are written that way). But to get the murderer off the streets, Polanski teams up with Ramona, a local prostitute along with female officer Kinska to set a trap. Kinska plays a prostitute waiting to be picked up by the killer, while the red-headed hooker and Polanski view from a car (a yellow VW bug, I might add), as Polanski belts Kinska instructions through a wireless microphone in her watch. As Polanski gives the orders, Kinska, decked out in leather quickly obeys, disrobing in front of the car, touching herself, trying to entice the car waiting, in hopes of catching the killer. She goes as far as allowing the driver to finger her (Giallo glove and all) and then cleans the glove off with her mouth of course. To make matters worse, this isn't even the killer. When she finds the right car it simply takes a "hello" to get inside. All that self degradation on Kinska's part was fruitless, but at least it made for some good ol' wankin' fun for the viewer. So, the killer drives off with Kinska, she gets knocked out, and officer Asshole, looses the car - "Answer me you insubordinate bitch." Polanski requests several times for Kinska to respond, as more time passes, making the film longer than it should be, and next thing we know she is tied to a ladder in a warehouse someplace. Captain Giallo (the murderer), then proceeds to stab her slowly for several minutes with an obvious protractible bladed knife, and for minutes upon minutes we get a ton of editing and no entry wounds - leaving you with a lame drawn out sequence.

Inspector Polanski arrives just in time for poor officer Kinska's dead body, which is littered with globs of bright red paint passing off as blood I guess. When he returns to the car he sees that redheaded Ramona is bound and gagged, and from behind the killer brains Polanski. He awakens tied and gagged. The killer puts off a show, just for his enjoyment. The prostitute is strapped to the bonnet of the car in all her naked glory as Captain Giallo tortures her by clamping booster cables to her nipples, as he revs the engine, to later gut the poor female like a fish. The film continues in this manner, as detective Polanski's hatred for women seems to grow, as he continues on his path to find the killer.

FANTOM KILER 2, like part 1, is not a good film - however it does have entertainment value and is not a total failure. The storyline for FANTOM KILER 2 has improved and plays out a bit faster, which is a plus, considering both films are slow. From my description, one can tell the film is far from groundbreaking but for what it is, it is better than the first. The gore hasn't improved at all, but the booster cable scene was a creative idea as far as torture goes - it just could have been played out a lot better, making it at least a tad disturbing. The only thing this film has going for it is a cool killer and naked strippers. Some nice lighting can be viewed throughout as well. So you decide.

Like its counterpart Teraz Films presents FANTOM KILER 2 in varied aspect ratios. It switches back and forth from 1:33.1 to varying degrees of fake widescreen. Once again the English subtitles are not removable and change screen position and size from time to time for no apparent reason. Like the first, the film is shot on DV and use of film grain filters are used to cover its photography format. There are nice vibrant colors shown, with good lighting at times, but with some minor artifacts. The audio is presented in Dolby Stereo and is crisp and clear. Once again Frank Cossak has his nice score playing throughout the film which is basically the same music as FANTOM KILER 1.

The supplemental material, also being like part 1, is sparse on material. The disc contains an 'FK1 Trailer', an 'FK2 Teaser', an 'Outtakes' clip which is basically the same as the trailers for the films with the exception of the actors laughing from time to time, and finally a music video titled 'Moi Fantomas' which is the movies theme song, with a female vocalist singing in I presume Polish or Russian. The DVD cover art this time around isn't as cool as the original, but it does still contain a DVD insert, which is always a plus in my book.

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