HEADHUNTER (1988)

 "AY, AY, AY!  IT'S EXORCIST TIME HERE, KIDS!" 

A series of murders in South Florida are occurring wherein the victims -- all Nigerian immigrants to the U.S. -- are found decapped . . . and all their heads are missing.  Miami cops Pete Giuliani (Wayne Crawford) and Katherine Hall (Kay Lenz) are on the case.  Hall is recently divorced and Giuliani has just been thrown out of his house by his wife who is having an affair with another woman.  Neither of their lives are going great at the moment, to be sure. 

The cops notice that, not only are the heads of the victims missing, but the neck has been cauterized!  Outside the second homicide, a group of Nigerian immigrants has gathered led by Samuel Juru (Sam Williams): Professor of Pan-African Studies at the University of Miami and shaman of the local Ibo population in Miami. 

He explains to the cops that an evil Nigerian demon has followed the Ibo immigrants to America to claim their souls; they left Nigeria to escape the demon's wrath and now he has tracked them down to the new world.  OK, so the first half hour of the film is played deadly straight -- mainly as a police procedural -- but then we come to the scene of the baptism!  You see, a group of Pentecostal Baptists are down by the edge of a terribly dirty-looking river where bearded Pastor Bobby is going to baptize a black woman whom we can only assume is an Ibo immigrant.  We can assume this because Pastor Bobby makes the incredibly terrible comment: "Stepping into the Jordan, now, gonna leave all that jungle darkness behind."  Sheesh.  Well, the good part of this is that we see a saber blade cruising through the water like the shark fin in JAWS; right down to similar music to the John Williams JAWS theme!  I kid you not. 

Po-faced seriousness up until now and then wackiness aplenty!  Of course, when Pastor Bobby ducks the woman down into the water, the sabre rushes up and chops her head off!  All the baptists take off running including Pastor Bobby; who jumps in his car yelling ""Let me out!  Never goin' near this f--in' river again goddam devil in here!" 

Oh yeah, and I can't forget the song that the baptists are singing; whose lyrics, to the best of my astonished ears can only be "Jesus Jesus Call Back!  Jesus Jesus Call Back!".  I mean, maybe he lost their number?!?!?! No, the song doesn't have any other words. 

I mean, this movie just went from good to great in one scene! This, however, is the one and only instance of zaniness in the film; it immediately reverts back to the 80's cop show asthetic (which isn't a bad thing) and remains a good movie.  But where did that baptism scene come from?!?  Our friend the evil demon is also really good at taking the shape of other people resulting a a lot of unpleasantness for our heroes.  There's also the fact that just about everyone in the film is watching THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON on TV.  So that's good! 

All in all, this is a pretty good film. Kay Lenz is always good value for money and she gives her usually great performance here.  The direction by Francis Schaeffer is quite good with only one or two laggy bits.  He keeps the camera fluid at all times which gives things a kinetic energy most of the time.  When we finally see the monster, he looks quite good as well.  All the effects are practical (natch for 1988) and the five person special effects team (in their one and only movie credit) acquit themselves well.  I enjoyed this one.