Trackman (2007)

 

Trackman starts with a bankrobbery gone to hell - two policemen are killed and the robbers take hostages as they flee down into the underground into a an abandoned metrosystem. One of the robbers is planning to kill the others to get all the money but all of that is thrown aside as a killer with a fetish for plucking out eyes starts to hunt them throughout the dark tunnels, killing robbers and hostages one by one.

What we have here is basically a slasher, people are killed by a generic masked killer. There isn't really anything new or fresh about the story itself, the characters have all been seen before in similar movies and we never really learn anything about the killer other than he is tall and masked, likes to remove eyes and kills with a large pickaxe. The fun part about Trackman, the thing that makes it rise a bit above the usual slashermovie, is the setting: the dark, wet tunnels of an abandoned Russian metrosystem. Here is where the movie shines, the filmmakers uses the location exceptionally well with good cinematography and a strong pace that never bogs down into bickering or anything else that scriptwriters use for padding their movies into full length.

It is always fun to watch a Russian take on a very western genre and at first I though I rated this movie higher just because it is Russian but in reality there isn't really anything particularily Russian about Trackman. It is "just" a very competent slasher that uses its resources very well and as such is a a lot better than a lot of similar movies. There are no bubbly teens, no jiggling silicone boobs - just people trying to outwit a killer in a very atmospheric location and that is all I need. I suppose there could have been a bit more gore but we do get a couple of glimpses of pickaxerelated violence and a semi-gory eyeextraction or two. Good clean fun, worth picking up if you are into well made slashers.