DESTROYER

In a maximum-security prison, the multiple murderer Ivan Moser is about to be executed in the electric chair; however, a short circuit causes a blackout that allows the inmates to leave their cells and set the building on fire. After a few years, when the prison has been closed due to that incident, a film crew obtains permission to shoot a movie in that place. But during the filming period, some murders decimate the crew: the mysterious killer in action seems to be the deceased Ivan Moser! The death penalty does not kill serial killers, but makes them stronger. This could now be considered a basic rule of a certain type of horror cinema, since over the years there have been several films that have portrayed a semi-immortal serial killer who escaped the electric chair or the lethal injection. The Cravenian "Under Shock" (1989) first and foremost and its clones "The House 7 - The Horror Show" (1989) and "Pentagram" (1990), up to the more recent "The Touch of Evil" (1998), all have at the center of the story a supernatural killer who continues his work even after being executed by the State. What could be read as a criticism of the barbaric practice of the death penalty, probably finds its initiator in this less than mediocre feature film by television director Robert Kirk. "L’occhio della morte", known abroad with the titles "Destroyer" or "Shadow of Death", is a banal slasher that has in the prison setting and the curious metacinematographic structure the points of greatest interest. Tradition has now accustomed us to the fact that the killer who survived the death penalty prefers to be free to roam and slaughter around the city; in this case, instead, Moser sets up camp right in the abandoned prison and does not seem interested in the practice of murder, but rather in safeguarding what he considers his property, eliminating the intruders. This is an unusual behavior for a serial killer that throws a minimum of originality on the figure of Moser, otherwise flat and standardized to the opulent physique of the actor and former football player Lyle Alzado who portrays him, in a characterization that reflects the canons of the efferate semi-retarded man from the slasher movie. As often happens with prison horrors, the sets are quite ugly and repetitive, capable of expressing the low-budget air that hovers over the production. The metacinematographic aspect, unfortunately, is not exploited properly and passes almost in the background, due to a series of uninteresting characters and non-existent psychological delineation. Even though it is dealing with a slasher, it would have been good to work a bit on the characters who this time are not the classic horny teens; instead, we have a couple of totally colorless protagonists, played by Deborah Foreman ("Jolly Killer"; "Waxwork") and Clayton Rohner ("Alone in that House"; "Relic"), to which is added an underused Anthony Perkins ("Psycho") in the role of the director of the legendary "women in prison" in production and Lanine Garret ("Kiss of Death") in the role of the capricious leading actress. If we add an unjustifiable narrative slowness in the central part and a almost total lack of gore scenes or tension, we can have the complete picture of the paucity of "L’occhio della morte". Watchable only for the slasher-asthetic spectator. Rounded vote down.