BA_Harrison In Destroyer, Anthony Perkins, the star of Hitchcock's Psycho, plays the director of cheesy 'Women In Prison' movie Death House Dolls and utters the line 'Everybody back in an hour. We'll do the shower scene.' That's as clever as the film gets, the rest of the movie being an extremely dumb tongue-in-cheek slasher that offers very little for horror fans to get excited about (except, perhaps, for the aforementioned shower scene, in which several buck naked fitties get sopping wet before having a cat-fight).Beating the similarly themed House III: The Horror Show and Wes Craven's Shocker by a year, Destroyer features a vicious, musclebound rapist and murderer called Ivan Moser (played by ex-NFL linesman Lyle Alzado), who receives the electric chair for his crimes, but who returns from the dead to terrorise the cast and crew of the aforementioned W.I.P. movie (which is being shot in the now abandoned jail where Moser was zapped). For this kind of uninspired trash to work, the killer's quips need to be reasonably amusing (which they aren't: Alzado is no Englund) and the kills both inventive and excessively splattery (which they aren't: the dull deaths either occur off screen or the film cuts away from the gory stuff too soon).Worse still, actress Deborah Foreman, as 'final girl' Susan, puts in a performance almost as irritating as that in her atrocious 1986 'comedy' My Chauffeur. Foreman has proven that she can play cute and sexy in Waxwork (1988) and Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989), and appealing in April Fool's Day, but when she plays overly kooky, as she does here, even her impressive dimples can't win me over. With her horrible hair-do, tomboyish outfits, and supposedly witty banter, Susan is presumably intended to be endearing, but I found her quite the opposite, and would have been quite happy for Moser to have run a few thousand volts through her while he could.3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

dworldeater I have not seen Destroyer in many years. I remember thinking this was pretty awesome as a teenager and was a favorite title to rent back in the day. Unlike many other childhood favorites, Destroyer does not hold up as well. This stars former NFL football player Lyle Alzado who plays a vicious serial killer that short circuits his electric chair, causing the prison to lose power and starts a prison riot. There is no trace of Ivan Moser(Alzado) and the prison closes with Ivan Moser's disappearance giving him legendary status. Two years later a film director(Anthony Perkins) uses the film as a set for his low budget skin flick(a women in prison style exploitation movie). Unfortunate for the viewer this stuff is not very interesting. Alzado does pop up and starts killing people off one by one. There is almost no character development on Ivan Moser to explain his back story on how or why he became a homicidal lunatic. Alzado's roid rage rampage is the highlight of the film. While the juice may have helped his performance on the football field, it did not do much for his acting. However, it is Alzado's hulking anabolic presence that separates the film slightly from other slasher films. Alzado was brutal here and there are some good kills here, but the film as a whole is not very good and does little to elevate it from standard slasher fare. Performances range from decent to complete crap and while some of this material is so bad its good, as a whole this is pretty bad. I would not say this film is unwatchable, but now I know why I forgot about this movie for twenty years.

Nick Drew The novelty of this picture is it takes place in an out of use prison, which is being employed as a movie set. Perkins, who was interestingly filling in for the originally cast Roddy McDowall - who was sick at the time of shooting, plays the unscrupulous director, and admittedly is about the films only real asset, because he has a few rather amusing scenes poking fun at the industry. I suppose Alzado is also of some note also, because he undoubtedly has an imposing disposition which works well for his role.Besides the parts when this movie is parodying itself, the usual slasher cliché's and inept dialogue routinely ensues. The photography here is fairly ordinary, where constant close-ups of eyes aren't terribly effective in creating tension. The pace can be quite lethargic at times, and the film is somewhat overlong, and seemingly doesn't know when to quit. As a movie that spoofs itself, it remains largely better than Boogeyman 2, but needless to say, this is still just trash.

Jtalledo At first glance, Destroyer looks like a very promising film for horror fans on paper. In an era where the slasher flick was in its prime, it looks as if this film sets itself apart from the rest. It features a human enemy who seems to be more of a genetic freak than an indestructible demon who does not target teenagers, as the bad guy usually does in recent entries of the genre. However, all the positive points end there and what we're left with is another excessively gratuitous gorefest that most horror fans won't take seriously.Beyond Anthony Perkins, there are no seriously notable names in the movie. It's too bad that such the horror icon did not have a notable body of work after his defining performance in "Psycho", making several mediocre "Psycho" sequels and b-movies like this. Nevertheless, he plays his role as skin flick director to a T. Other than the two heroes, everyone else in the movie is either there to get killed or say a few lines. And the heroes aren't even of note either. The only difference they have with everyone else in the movie and in the number of lines they have. There is never any development of their characters, so you don't know what special qualities they possess that make them the good guys in the end other than mere coincidence and serendipity.If there's one thing the movie has going for it, it's the way some of the characters get dispensed. There's a nice scene with a blowtorch and the movie's best part, involving a huge drilling device (as seen on the video box). However, as the movie goes on, the scenes become a little less graphic though we are treated to some body parts strewn around and some wax-museum quality bodies. Credit must be given to Lyle Alzado, who looks VERY menacing as the main bad guy. He shows a bit of acting ability in this movie. Throughout his brief career acting after football, which was cut short after he sadly succumbed to brain cancer, he was thoroughly underused as a main villain in movies.In short, the Destroyer is a decent weekend b-movie. Its partly refreshing perspective on the slasher genre and its almost humorously over-gory scenes make it a fun movie to watch and laugh at with a few friends. Look for some nice (if inadvertent) homages to horror classics the Shining (with the blood on the wall sequence) and Friday the 13th (with the gotcha! end of the movie). Finally, be sure to sit through the credits for a very weird name for one of the movie's songs. The laughs are definitely worth a cheap rental.