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 Given the title and the fact it is categorized as horror, you might think that "Bruiser" would be about a big bully who goes a bit further than stealing lunch money or giving wedgies. However, the title is really referring to the name of a modeling magazine, and the story revolves around a downtrodden white-collar worker who wakes up with a mask magically fused to his face. As a result of this experience, he realizes that his identity is lost and decides to re-invent himself by killing all the people who have done him wrong (and to the movie's credit, they have done him very wrong). This would sound like a setup for a potential ripoff of "American Psycho", which also has a white-collar worker turning into a serial killer, but "Bruiser" uses revenge as a motive for murder while there are no motives in "American Psycho". That would seem like a minor point but something like this greatly affects the structure of the story. One is structured in the same way as any typical revenge story (protagonist gets screwed over, then protagonist gets even or homicidal) while the other has no structure but is instead a plotless account about random acts of senseless violence. Also, "Bruiser" does not satirize any specific era, nor does it show a lot of gore (actually, the film version for "American Psycho" doesn't show much in the gore department either, but the novel is truly graphic and describes the murders in great detail). The lack of gore in "Bruiser" is a bit of a surprise considering that it has been written and directed by George A. Romero, the same man who took gore to new levels in "Night of the Living Dead" back in 1969 and went on to do a few more quality horror movies up until the mid-1980's. Goreless murders in horror movies are a bit of a handicap nowadays, but they can still work if they are well-executed and eagerly anticipated enough. Because of the revenge factor, the murders here are anticipated, but the execution is shoddy and disappointing (particularly the one with the high-power laser). Perhaps equally surprising as the lack of gore is an over-the-top performance by Peter Stormare, who plays a flamboyant, sleazy executive and possibly cusses even more than Joe Pesci does in "Goodfellas". At first, his overtly obnoxious character is an amusing contrast to the mostly silent mercenary role in "Fargo" for which Stormare is best known, but he gets awfully annoying after a while (making me long for the days when Stormare just had a precious few lines like "Where is Pancakes House?") All in all, this is a movie that isn't quite what you expect it to be, and because the viewing experience is a bit uneven and somewhat watered down, it might not be what you hoped for either, especially when the "Night of the Living Dead" trilogy and "Creepshow" come to mind. |
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QUARTER BY QUARTER ANALYSIS OF MOVIE
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OVERALL RATING
** NOTE: The more dots, the better it is. 12 dots indicates a masterpiece while no dots means it's a "disasterpiece." ** |
    
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The Worm-Hole Reviews are written by Matt Barnes.