Damn Amsterdam

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Movie
German title Damn Amsterdam
Original title Amsterdamned
Country of production Netherlands
original language Dutch
Publishing year 1988
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Dick Maas
script Dick Maas
production Dick Maas,
Laurens Geels
music Dick Maas, Golden Earring
Song My Killer, My Shadow
camera Marc Felperlaan
cut Hans van Dongen
occupation

Verfluchtes Amsterdam (Original title: Amsterdamned ) is a Dutch action thriller with horror elements from 1988. It was directed by Dick Maas , who became famous in 1983 with the film Elevator of Horror and later created the Flodder series. The main roles are played by Huub Stapel , who is also known from Flodder , and Monique van de Ven , who made a successful debut in Paul Verhoeven's film Turkish Fruits in 1973 .

action

On a summer sight-seeing tour through the canals of Amsterdam , the tourists of an excursion boat are confronted with the corpse of a prostitute who was brutally murdered hanging upside down from a bridge. The only witness, a bag lady, describes the perpetrator in the police interrogation as a "monster" in black with claws and big feet.

The responsible inspector Eric Visser looks rather casual from the outside. Together with his somewhat clumsy and unlucky colleague Hans Vermeer and his old friend John van Beggeren, who supports the investigation as a diver from the water police, he goes in search of the madman. When more murders happened, u. a. to two environmental activists and an employee of the Salvation Army, evidence suggests that the perpetrator may have come from diving circles .

Visser starts investigating in the largest local diving club and gets to know the beautiful Laura and her friend and psychiatrist Ruysdael, who is no longer an active diver himself, since his friend had an accident three years ago, which he initially did in a conversation with Eric hides and talks about having too much to do with his practice. While Eric and Laura get to know each other better in the further course of the plot, Eric's teenage daughter Anneke tries to follow in the footsteps of her father and to track down the perpetrator with the help of her school friend Willy; the two come dangerously close to this.

After another murder of a young woman sunbathing in a rubber dinghy and the lack of results, Visser is put under even greater pressure by his boss, who in turn is urged by the mayor to investigate the case. He asks the police chief about a successor for Visser. The first successful search results in the arrest of a man to whom the perpetrator profile applies. But after an intensive interrogation, Erik does not believe in his guilt.

The night after the alleged perpetrator was arrested, which Eric spends with Laura in search of consolation, suspicious of the success of the manhunt, another murder of a drunken houseboat owner takes place, whose boat the perpetrator brings down with brute force. When John, who is examining the sunken boat wreck of the victim for evidence, is also brutally murdered by the perpetrator the next morning, Vermeer believes he has the killer trapped in a lock, but from which he escaped by trick and into a boathouse can. Found there by Visser, the killer escapes in a racing boat. Eric follows with a second, followed by a spectacular chase through the canals of the Dutch capital. The "monster" can finally no longer avoid a tanker with his boat, but can escape into the sewer system . Visser is injured by his harpoon as he pursues him and is able to shoot him with the last of his strength, but then faints. Hours later, Eric wakes up in the hospital and looks into Laura's eyes, Vermeer is also there. The doctor removes Eric from circulation for another twelve hours to promote healing.

Meanwhile, Laura accidentally finds the recently used diving equipment of the "monster" in Ruysdael's house and - firmly convinced that her therapist is the culprit - she tries to inform Eric by phone in the hospital, who is still sedated when Ruysdael arrives at home. Laura can overpower him a little later in the boathouse, but is then attacked by the real killer. Literally at the last moment, the rushed Visser grazed the perpetrator, whereupon Laura let go and escaped again.

Ruysdael explains to Eric and Laura: The "monster" is a childhood friend and former professional diver. About three years earlier, during what was actually a routine job, he had to unknowingly retrieve barrels containing the toxic chemical uranium hexafluoride . One of them was probably shattered under water; this resulted in uncontrollable mutations , including in the diver's brain. He was acting stranger and stranger and Ruysdael hoped to get his friend back to normal - both with the sessions and with the requested diving equipment.

When Visser and his police colleague finally storm the apartment of the disfigured diver, it is moments too late: The injured "monster" straightened itself with an arrow from its harpoon.

Trivia

  • Damn Amsterdam is considered one of the most commercially successful Dutch films. It is one of the 100 most successful films shown in Germany in the cinema year 1988. According to Media Control , 145,617 viewers have seen it.
  • The highlight of the film is the spectacular and elaborate motorboat chase through the canals of Amsterdam. The British stuntman Nick Gillard managed a 67-meter jump over two bridges with a racing boat. For this record jump, with which he exceeded the record set in the James Bond film Live and Let Die in 1973 , he received an entry in the Guinness Book of Records . The inspiration for this was the 1971 film The Rats of Amsterdam with its boat hunt, whereby in addition to the location, the same color scheme of the boats was adopted for Cursed Amsterdam .
  • The chase was filmed both in Amsterdam and in neighboring Utrecht on the Oudegracht , as only here low quays could be found. They served as a backdrop for a “shore excursion” by both boats as they plow through several tables and chairs to avoid an obstacle.
  • While filming the boat hunt, Huub Stapel hit a wall and injured himself so badly that filming had to be paused for three weeks.
  • During the boat hunt, a boat with a brass band comes towards the actors. The conductor of the wind instruments is the director Bert Haanstra , who staged the film ... and the music blows for it in 1958 , in which bands on boats played a special role.

Reviews

The reviews for this film were very mixed. While the magazine Cinema described this film as an "original masterpiece full of suspense ", the Lexicon of International Films criticized the questionable, cheaply put psychologization of the ending.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for Cursed Amsterdam . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , November 2014 (PDF; test number: 59 968 V).
  2. ^ Lothar R. Just: Heyne Film Yearbook 1989 , Heyne Verlag
  3. ↑ Guinness Book of Records 1999 , Guinness Publishing House

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