International waters: Amsterdamned (1988)
in which the canals of Amsterdam become a slasher's playground, we are so back folks
Happy new year, folks! And what better way to celebrate 2024 than to pluck out a semi-obscure Dutch slasher from 1988!
Extensive spoilers for the whole movie from the start (a wee warning because it gets a bit graphic in spots.)
Amsterdamned (1988)
Written and directed by: Dick Maas (The Lift, Do Not Disturb, Moordwijven)
Starring: Huub Stapel, Monique van de Ven, Serge-Henri Valcke, Wim Zomer, Tatum Dagelet
Run time: 105 minutes
Original release: 11 February 1988
A thought exercise to start us off
Imagine you’re a primary school teacher in the Netherlands. You’ve taken your group of enthusiastic kiddos to Amsterdam, on a tour of the canals. The vibes in the tour boat are upbeat, you’re there with a bunch of pensioners and a couple of nuns in addition to your group, the tour guide cracks a nice joke. It’s good, it’s all very good.
And then you pass a bridge, and strung from that bridge is the lifeless body of a sex worker. The children scream in horror as the boat floats directly under the body, causing it to drag in agonizing slow motion over the glass roof, trailing blood behind it. The children are screaming, the nuns cross themselves in fright. And then, as a cherry on top of the worst sundae possible, imagine that the body falls through the open roof of the boat and is now dangling in the middle of the boat.
You know, much like this.
This is the start of Amsterdamned, a Dutch slasher horror in which Amsterdam’s famous canals become a playground for a vicious, scuba diving serial killer. Well, not the actual start, but it’s the aftermath of the event that kicks the movie into gear. It actually starts with an extended point of view in which we follow the killer swimming undetected through the city. In brief bursts, we see the city at night: lights, folks on a night out, bridges and miles and miles of water. Eventually, we stop at the back of a Chinese restaurant (the kitchen backs out onto the water which would terrify the bejesus out of me if I worked there). One of the cooks puts down the knife he is using and in the brief moment he turns his back to it, asking his colleague a question, the knife disappears.
The killer swims to the Red Light District, where we briefly switch point of view to follow the unlucky sex worker as she leaves work for the night and takes a taxi. The taxi driver rather quickly proves himself to be a godawful pervert and when she refuses his advances (and from the looks of it, bites him on the dick which serves him right) he throws her out of the taxi. As she tries to gather her stuff which has fallen to the ground, she is briefly offered help by a passing bag lady, who she kindly turns down.
Unfortunately, we then see the killer rising from the shadows, and the bag lady watches from a distance, terrified, as the young woman gets brutally stabbed before being dragged into the canal, later to become one tour guide’s worst day at work possibly ever.
It’s a striking opening section, reminding you that Amsterdam is a city in which the water is inevitable. It surrounds you, its threads running through the streets like a nervous system. It is gorgeous and at the same time terrifying to be so continuously reminded of its presence.
but he gets results, damnit!
Assigned to investigate this murder is Amsterdam’s most brooding police detective, Eric Visser (Huub Stapel, and yes, the character’s last name is the Dutch word for “fisher”, WATER EVERYWHERE MAN), a leather jacket wearing, mullet-sporting man who looks a bit like Frank Cotton from Hellraiser. He enjoys a drink, is partial to a long bath and is raising his 13-year-old daughter Anneke (Tatum Dagelet, in her debut role) alone after his ex “left him for a painter”.
Visser as a character is seemingly an amalgamation of every cinematic broody late 80s (and early 90s) police detective, but Stapel’s portrayal keeps the character interesting. He’s dry of wit and competent at his job, but also crucially not a complete dickhead while carrying said job out. While at the crime scene, Visser’s colleague manages to speak to the bag lady, who, while insisting it was a “dark monster” who murdered the sex worker, does give them the crucial first piece of the puzzle: that the killer came out of the water.
That night, two environmentalists attempting to covertly take water samples near a chemical plant fall afoul of the killer, in probably my favourite pair of kills of the movie: the first environmentalist gets dragged underwater and swiftly beheaded (his colleague fishing up the disembodied head is particularly chef’s kiss), while the second makes it to the shore and manages to get the attention of a plant worker but is dragged back into the water. Visser and his colleague Vermeer (Serge-Henri Valcke) visit the coroners and come to the conclusion that a serial killer is at work, one with a knowledge of deep diving (as diving equipment is discovered on the scene).
Visser’s river police colleague John (Wim Zomer) joins the investigation (but not before we find out that Visser’s ex was initially John’s girlfriend, and Visser stole her from him, what a rotter), and Visser goes to visit a local diving club for a search. This is where we meet Laura (Monique van de Ven), a novice diver who started the sport on recommendation from her therapist Martin (Hidde Maes) in order to cope with the grief of losing her husband. It’s not long before Visser and Laura take a fancy to each other, and it’s also not long before the killer strikes again, first targeting a young woman collecting for the salvationists at night, and the next morning, a woman floating on an inflatable sunbed (this last one is arguably the film’s most hideously terrifying kill, one which I won’t spoil but honestly FUCKING OUCH).
fake-out
At this point, the mayor gets involved, deeply unhappy about the fact that Amsterdam’s newest tourist attraction is a maniacal scuba diving killer. Visser himself is frustrated about the lack of results, until it looks like they have found and arrested their man: a former employee of the chemical plant known for violent outbursts. Visser is skeptical, however, and it turns out he has every right to be: the killer strikes again that night, with his next victim an elderly skipper.
[while this is happening, under the cover of a rain storm, Visser is having a brief break from proceedings for the purposes of a nice shag with Laura and yes the film does transition from said shag to the skipper being murdered, we have fun here folks]
The next day, John decides to fly solo and takes a small crew to go investigate underwater. This ends rather badly for him, as while he does find the skipper’s dead body, the killer finds him before he can come ashore and by the time Visser arrives at the scene John has been taken away, stabbed to death underwater.
The killer is eventually located at a marina and Visser gives chase in a speedboat (and it is delicious, the scene came into being with the help of legendary stuntman/coordinator Vic Armstrong and it shows) before proceeding on foot in the sewers. In one of the films few yet brilliant jump scares, Visser attempts to climb out of the sewer only for the killer to appear and shoot him in the shoulder with a harpoon gun. Before passing out, Visser manages to shoot the killer’s mask.
Chekov’s “diver friend who had an accident”
As Visser recovers in hospital, Laura arrives at Martin’s house for her next counselling session. She’s let into the house by his housekeeper, who notifies her that he’s not home yet but she can wait inside and “have a glass of sherry” (yes, it is a very fancy house, why do you ask). As she does so, she hears a noise coming from the basement (which lets out onto the water) and goes to explore. Alarmingly, she finds the broken mask and a bloodied divers suit (there’s also a brief shot of the salvationists collection tin on the floor, something which Laura does not see) and runs back into the living room to call Visser at the hospital. She manages to relay to the receptionist that “she knows who it is now” before Martin arrives back at the house (and I should point out that Martin looks like a shady fucker from the start so), prompting her to hide.
Visser gets a visit from Vermeer with a change of clothes, which proves handy as the nurse who took Laura’s call walks in to give him the message. To pretty much everyone’s surprise (including that of his daughter and her friend, who have just walked in to visit only to be greeted by her dad just going “sweetie, daddy needs to nip out for a sec, brb”) Visser bolts out of there with Vermeer on his tail, having quickly figured out what the hell the message meant.
Meanwhile, Laura corners Martin in the basement and beats him with a stray oar. As he lies unconscious on the floor, the actual killer emerges from the water and Laura is left hanging on for dear life as the killer attempts to drag her under. Visser arrives and shoots the killer, who flees while Martin comes to and Laura breathlessly apologizes. Martin confesses that he knows who the killer is (and it comes back to a seemingly throw-away line from Laura earlier on during dinner in which the person in question is briefly mentioned), and as the three drive in the pissing rain, the killer - a childhood friend and former diver who was disfigured on a commercial diving job from uranium hexafluoride poisoning, and shunned from society as the poisoning began to affect his brain - arrives at his home and reveals himself to the audience before taking his own life, just as Visser, Laura and Martin arrive.
*takes deep breath*
Yowza.
The film ends as Visser and Laura take a nice little trip on a paddling boat, the canals safe at last…
Probably.
Damned-er
Amsterdamned is a movie that’s been at the back of my subconscious mind for a very long time now; I have a deep sense memory of a trailer for a TV broadcast playing (it’s obviously the scene with the tour boat, of course it’s that scene) and the channel’s voice-over sonorously intoning the title. I have no idea how old I was but I remember damn well the feeling that this broadcast was NOT FOR MY EYES, IT’S ON AFTER ELEVEN AT NIGHT, LOOK AWAY DEAR CHILD.
That, my friends, is how you start a fascination with a movie. I’ve been toying with seeking it out for at least a year, but when the news broke just after Christmas that a sequel was coming (I am both excited and terrified) I knew what needed to be done.
Let me be clear, this is not a brilliant movie. It could do with being at least five minutes shorter, for starters. But I can see why it was such a success and why it remains a classique; it’s fun, it uses its setting very cleverly and while it’s trope-y, it has a good time playing with those tropes. Seek it out, pop the subtitles on and learn some class Dutch swear words while you’re at it.
Also, listen to the song that plays over the credits: a banger by the Dutch girl group Loïs Lane.