2000 slasher Cut is by director Kimble Rendall, who took a very long break before making the awesome shark movie Bait (my blog here). But Cut is a must see if you are one of those 80s whores like me. Somehow, this slasher scored Kylie Minogue and…Molly Ringwald! Yep, it took almost twenty years, but Molly Ringwald, the queen of 80s teen films, FINALLY started doing slasher movies. First there was Office Killer (blog here). Then she camped it up perfectly in this one.
The highlight is the opener, when Molly is taking a shower and singing along to the new wave classic “I Got You” by Split Enz. You know the queen of 80s teen films with new wave soundtracks was the one who chose that song and insisted the director put it in the movie. Now if only Kylie had broken into “The Locomotion,” this would have been the quintessential 80s throwback slasher!
12 years after the director of a horror film (starring Molly) is murdered, a film class decides to try to finish the film…at the same house…with Molly as the star. Guess what happens next….
The killer’s mask is pretty dang cool and the first major kill features one of the best beheadings ever. This looks and sounds like a serious live head just dropped to the floor (not that I would know). Actually, all the sleek, modern, post-Scream kills are the best part of the film.
A majority of the movie is held together by the plot device of no one in the cast and crew realizing that the person walking around in the mask usually worn by the actor playing the killer in their movie is actually the killer. And the majority of the characters are simply there to be killed; Molly is the only one who stands out in the crowd. I guess that’s because the intention of the film is pretty much to make Molly a “final girl.”
In the end, the killer proves to be much more than just another guy in a mask with a sharp weapon…at which point the film takes a pretty bizarre turn that feels more 80s direct-to-video than new millennium slasher!
