AMSTERDAMNED (1988)

Directed by: Dick Mass. Starring: Huub Stapel, Monique van
de Ven, Serge-Henri Valcke. Holland 1988, 104mins. Certificate 15.

Thanks to streaming on Amazon Prime, this was a rewatch after a 30+ years gap from when I first caught it at the cinema on its initial release. It took many years to get that damned catchy ‘Amsterdamned’ end credits song out of my head, so now of course after all these years it’s once more taken up long-term lodging in my brain. Damn you ‘Amsterdamned’!

I have a lot of time for Dick Mass flicks, which is just as well given that here he stretches the (admittedly nifty) premise out to just 7 minutes short of 2 hours. And whilst this Dutch frogman canal giallo/slasher is relatively restrained with regards to the body count and actual on-screen kills, it more than compensates with:

• zippy dialogue (even surviving relatively intact in the English dubbed version),
• gloriously immersive location work,
• quirky throwaway moments such as the bakery holdup,
• cheeky references to ‘Jaws’,
• outrageous set-pieces:  e.g. the very messy tourist canal boat ride, the James Bond like over the top speedboat chase, and a restaging of Nancy's Elm Street bathtub nightmare on an inflatable with a rather large knife.

 Definitely worth a punt down these murderous Dutch canals.

 P.S. all together now…

"Amsterdamned, Amsterdamned, ooohooo

This is Amsterdamned

 Amsterdamned, Amsterdamned, oho

(This place is damned!)

This is Amsterdamned"

****(out of 5*)

Paul Worts