The Horror of “Amsterdamned” Canals Are Now Available at Home!
A killer emerges out of the depths of an Amsterdam canal and mercilessly kills a prostitute, dragging her into the water, and suspends her lifeless, stabbed-riddled corpse over one of the canal bridges. Detective Eric Visser is baffled by the canal killer’s unusual technique but aims to track down the bravado murderer while living the single dad life with daughter Anneke. When another couple of heinous killings takes place out in the middle of the water and the mutilated bodies wash ashore, panic begins to creep into administrative officials with the thought of a scuba diving maniac swimming in the hundreds of Amsterdam canals. Investigating the underwater hobby leads Visser to meet Laura, a diving enthusiast and museum tour guide who sparks instantly with the ruggedly handsome detective, but as the Visser gets closer to the truth and the killer, Laura becomes emmeshed in a crime that’s deadlier than an embolism.
If scuba diving wasn’t already deadly enough, the murky waters of canal rivulets become the hunting grounds of a deranged, underwater killer in Dick Maas’s 1988 Dutch crime thriller “Amsterdamned.” The elevator horror filmmaker of “The Lift” Maas wrote and directed the red-running canal of carnage with a fast-paced, action-packed, hard-boiled, giallo film outside the conventional Italia-construction. Shot mostly in the red-light district capital of the world of Amsterdam, shooting locations also include Utrecht to accommodate additional speedboat scenes, plus studio work in Leiden and Heemstede, Netherland. Maas self produces the action-horror alongside Lauren Geels, a longtime collaborator with Maas who’ve worked previously on comedies “Voyeur” and “Flodders” and subsequent projects, such as the English-dialogued apocalyptic drama “The Last Island” helmed by provocative feminist filmmaker Marleen Gorris and Maas’s own American remake of “The Lift,” known as “The Shaft” or “Down.” “Amsterdamned” is distributed theatrically by First Floor Pictures.
Huub Stapel (“The Cool Lakes of Death,” “The Lift”) stars as the world-weary, tough as nails cop Eric Visser. Also, as a single dad raising a small preteen and nearly self-independent child Anneke (Tatum Dagelet, ”Stuk!”), the setup doesn’t automatically constitute the detective as a cynically hardboiled man of the law but evokes more of a seasoned and skeptical vigilant persona of a man who is willing to leave circumspection at the door when duty calls. Stapel wonderfully fits the bill of Eric Visser’s rugged and assured good looks with a force in tune with being a father and a police investigator when the occasion calls for it. Being a single father also invites the opportunity to spark an exciting love interest to later put into danger. The infectious smile of Monique van de Ven (“Turkish Delight,” “A Woman Like Eve”) fills that void as Stapel and Ven engage in teetering flirtation that makes us wonder how astute is Visser now on a case that’s causing havoc on the streets of, or rather the waterways of, Amsterdam. Luckily, fellow police partners Vermeer (Serge-Henri Valcke, “Sl8n8”) and John van Meegeren (Wim Zomer), the latter a professional scuba diver and once jealous rival lover of Visser, keep the detective mostly focused with investigative conversation, joint crime scene speculation, and the gruesome death of one of them when they get too close. That ancient rivalry between Visser and Meegeren stays put in the re-introduction of their assembly with no hard feelings and bygones will be bygones attitude, missing the change for any exterior or addition tension outside the murderer’s reign of terror. “Amsterdamned” rounds out the cast with Lou Landré, Tanneke Hartzuiker, and Hidde Maas.
The fascinating aspect of Dick Maas’s “Amsterdamned” is taking the idyllic, ingrained, and utilitarian that is a cultural and landmark staple of Amsterdam and turning into an unpleasant gateway of fear and anxiety. Transferring soundbite cues and following a storyline that’s not terribly too dissimilar from that of Steven Speilberg’s iconic oceanic death-dealing “Jaws,” and toss in Dick Maas’s enthusiastic fervor for a heart-racing effervescence, and you have the singular crime-thriller “Amsterdamned” in a nutshell that’s doesn’t deliver trite and uninspired horror or thrills but rather spoils the innate grandeur of a worldclass city that’s soaked in splendor as well as carnal sin; a fact lost upon espionage thrillers who overuse “Amsterdam” as an assembly of salvo and high-speed chases. Maas does add his own variation of high-speed chase with a lengthy and complex speedboat pursuit through the on-site in Amsterdam and Utrecht canals with gripping and well edited ramp jumps and fiery explosions that predate some of the more renowned speedboat chases of modern cinema. What’s also interesting about “Amsterdamned” is the adversary that doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles to make a convoluted story stick; instead, the killer is rather simply pieced together but descriptively held at bay until the finale for maximum suspense on unveiling the identity.
Surfacing just beneath the depths is a 2K restoration from the original 35mm negative, approved by Dick Maas, from Blue Underground; however, these Blu-ray specs mirror the 2017 Blu-ray and DVD combo set and is more than likely the same transfer but for this standard edition, also labeled special edition, release. The single disc, AVC encoded, BD50 is presented in high-definition 1080p and in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Color saturation stands out here with a specified density that results in a pop of color and a diffusion of light that’s brilliant and revealing in the day without a bleeding wash and cold, wet, and with a noir-like steeliness at night, accentuated by inky solid shadows. The original 35mm print has flawless approach into the restoration that makes the 2K scan candid and, perhaps, a walk in the park for another Blue Underground upgrade to high-definition in their established genre catalogue. The original Dutch soundtrack is presented in a 5.1 DTS-HD, greatly tightened around the milieu and dialogue to isolate each track for separation and clarity. Dick Maas, a filmmaker of many talents, scores his own feature with an unintrusive and dynamic soundtrack that ebbs and flows with the trepidation terror and tension-riddled action. Dialogue is clean and clear but does have that ADR artificiality to it. English subtitles render over promptly and error free. Two other soundtrack mixes are available on the dual layer disc: a lossless hybrid English-Dutch 2.0 DTS-HD and a French dubbed and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. English SHD and Spanish subtitles are also optionally available. Extras are pulled from the previous Blue Underground release and are an audio commentary from writer/director/composer Dick Maas and editor Hans van Dungen, a making of “Amsterdamned,” an interview with star Huub Stapel Tales from the Canal, an interview with stunt coordinator Dickey Beer Damned Stuntwork, the Dutch and US trailer, the Lois Lane music video directed by Dick Maas, and poster and still galleries. Behind the wild ride illustrated composition of the Blu-ray front cover, the reverse cover lists the encoded scene chapters on top of one of Huub Stapel’s stunt work performances. The disc is pressed with the masked scuba diver head holding a gleaming diver’s knife cover art from Blue Underground’s limited-edition Blu-ray and DVD combo set of 2017. The all region encoded disc holds a 113-minute feature and is rated R.
Last Rites: If looking to save a buck against purchasing the limited edition, dual format combo set, the standard special edition Blu-ray of “Amsterdamned” is worth it, especially since the film has been absent from U.S. home markets up until 2017. Dick Maas is a premier Dutch horror filmmaker with the ability to keep us engaged as well as on edge.
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