Movie Review: Trackman

A perfect bank heist turns deadly when the robbers and their hostages flee to an abandoned underground subway station where they encounter the Trackman, a deformed madman that prowls the darkness.

From the country that brought us such great things as the Kremlin, the Chernobyl disaster and lots of guys named Boris comes this horror film, and I use the descriptive "horror" loosely. It's really more of a thriller, minus a lot of thrills.

Pay close attention to the opening credits, which consist of strange drawings paired with some creepy kid's voices singing in unison. It's in Russian of course, so I had no idea what they saying, so it's very spooky and atmospheric. Maybe they're singing about lollipops in which case I guess it's not that creepy The reason I say to pay close attention is because that's really the best part of the movie.

These guys rob the bank, head underground into some old tunnels with hostages in tow, and begin to bicker and fight with each other well past the point of annoyance. So we can cheer for the hostages right? No, they're just as annoying. Everyone is annoying, which is not a good sign. It adds to the annoying factor that I watched the movie in English, despite them speaking Russian, so the lines are said more flatly and their lips aren't in sync.

More annoying is that they all have guns and the "Trackman" guy only has some eye-removal tool thingy and a pick-axe, and he begins wasting them. Give me a gun and send me down there and I think I'll walk out in a bit with a dead freak laying somewhere in the tunnels behind me. This guy even chases a couple of them at one point... and yes they have the gun in their hands. Also, when you get to the end you'll see just how completely stupid it all is. They set you up to make you think you know who the Trackman is, and he does things that are supernatural, like sneaking up right behind them only to have them turn around he'll be gone. When the end is revealed though it makes you questions about a hundred things that happened, mainly why did he pluck their eyes out (which I can only assume is because the writer watched Hostel, Jeepers Creepers, See No Evil or Feast and thought he do the same) and why he didn't just have a gun of his own and the movie would have been over in about 2 minutes.

But let's get to the good stuff, and this shouldn't take long. The set in the tunnels is really creepy and nice and when the movie feels like a slasher film there is a bit of gore and it gets to be sort of fun. It's short lived though unfortunately.

So my first Russian horror film was so bad I had to drink some Smirnoff to get through it. Maybe that was their plan all along. They should have called this Suckman.

2/10