Coroner Catchup: Trackman

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 3, 2009

If I were prone to judge books DVDs by their covers, I would have thought that Trackman was like a cool Russian homage to My Bloody Valentine or, at the very least, a slasher movie about a big lumbering bad dude with a penchant for pickaxing his way through humans.  As I do actually judge DVDs by their cover, I decided I’d definitely catch up on this film, so you can imagine my disappointment when Trackman was more like a robbery movie with a horror motif.  But not in a cool way.

The story follows a group of Russian criminals who plan a smooth bank robbery that quickly goes awry, ending with the death of several Russian police and the kidnapping of several people.  As the group tries to escape through a complex sewer system, they’re soon stalked by the Trackman, a crazed killer rumored to be a survivor of the Chernobyl incident who has a penchant for plucking out eyes and giving foes the pick axe.

Kills

Seven people bite the big one in this Ghosthouse Underground import, though none of the kills garner any real excitement.

Ills

There are a lot of gunshot wounds, in fact most of the kills are from guns, not pick axes, which is a bad sign.  We see a severed hand, a few eyes are removed, there is a little pick axe action, a leg cut, and one cool eye removal that is plenty gross.

Lust

Absolutely nothing happening in this department.

Learning

A life of crime often ends in a lame death.  Never trust another criminal and stay out of the sewers of Russia.

Review

You’ve probably picked up my tone by now, which indicates that I’m not a big fan of this movie.  Things start off on a good foot with a cool credit sequence that has images of people getting their eyes removed drawn in crayons.  The bank robbery is pretty well done and the bullet hits look good, but this My Bloody Valentine ripoff is all downhill from there.  Trackman himself is barely in it.  The literal translation of the Russian Putevoy obkhodchik is actually “Dudes in a Sewer” as near as I can figure, which explains Trackman’s absence.  When he is around, he is somehow sneaking around and navigating the sewers without being detected, despite the fact that he makes more noise than a drunken elephant walking through a room of cymbals.  He disappears and moves around a little bit, perhaps leading you to believe this is a ghost story or a slasher – but it’s neither.  It’s just some dude in the sewer who doesn’t do much.

As a foreign import, you get the requisite badly dubbed sections which gives you such classic tough guy lines as “Shut the fuck up or I’ll blow your brains.”  No, he doesn’t say where he’ll blow them, or with what, or how hard, but he’s going to blow them, damn it!  The acting isn’t atrocious, though it is a little whiny at times from the female cast, so that’s not too big of a problem.  The reason the film falters is just a lack of Trackman doing what a Trackman needs to do – killing people violently.  The titular killer is lackluster and fails to drum up tension.  What he does manage to drum up is a flamethrower, which he uses to no effect.  I also have this hopeless note hastily written in my ledger:  Now Trackman has a gun.

If Russian imports give you a boner, perhaps you’ll find something to like here.  Otherwise, this dud of a film fails to deliver scares, kills, thrills, or nudity.  So I say pass on it.

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