Nikos the Impaler (2003)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

You've got to admire Andreas Schnaas: despite no discernible talent for film-making, he's been churning out low-budget gore movies since 1987. I first experienced his bargain basement horror 15 years ago with the abominable 'Zombie 90' , and I recently picked up 'Nikos the Impaler' in the hope that maybe he had improved somewhat over the last decade and a half. No prizes for guessing that he hasn't!This tale of a bloodthirsty 11th century barbarian brought to life in present day New York features some of the worst direction, editing and acting it has ever been my misfortune to witness. Schnaas and his team seem to have no idea how to piece a film together, but somehow, despite this (or because of this), 'Nikos' turned out to be fairly entertaining—a case of a film being made bearable due to its utter crapness. Of course it doesn't hurt that Schnaas loads his film with joke-shop gore and includes a gratuitous shower scene for the blokes (albeit one featuring a skanky woman with bad tattoos).Schnaas's first film to be made in America, 'Nikos' starts off slowly, and the first half an hour is a real chore to sit through. After that, the blood starts to flow and fans of no-budget gore-fests will love the OTT death scenes. The unrealistic no-frills splatter FX come thick and fast and are good for a laugh, if nothing else.Nikos, the big bad Romanian who is resurrected when blood is accidentally splashed on his mask at a museum/gallery, slices and dices his way through the cast, splashing blood and body parts all over the place. After slaughtering the people in the gallery, he continues his killing spree on the streets of the Big Apple, wasting the occupants of a cinema, the staff of a gym and finally some people in a video shop. At this point the movie goes completely bonkers, and Schnaas throws in some ninjas, a vampire and Hitler for good measure!Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Well, for a while it is, but the lack of a decent plot and any evidence of technical ability from the makers ensures that proceedings become tedious before long. There's only so many inept beheadings you can take before you start longing for the end credits to roll instead.

First and foremost, I do NOT regret buying this one bit. Its a low-budget gore movie and thats exactly what you get, with added comedy. The plot is very simple. Big bad barbarian called Nikos becomes a bit of a problem for some ancient Romanian people, so they go along and kill him. With his dying words he states that death will not stop him. Cut to modern day, with an exhibition of ancient Romanian art in full swing. Of course there just happens to be the mask of Nikos hanging around in a store room and right on cue - a robbery attempt occurs. Well, suffice to say, blood gets spilt, and right on Niko's mask too. Thats his signal to rise up and wreak bloody vengeance on anybody and everybody in his way.Its a monster/survivors style film, which really goes crazy at the end. I won't spoil it all, but Nikos manages to find some "special Powers" from somewhere and goes about resurrecting a few people to fight alongside him.The gore is good for what this film is. There's no ultra-realism, nor is it striven for. Some effects are so obviously fake, but strangely they don't detract from the overall impact of the film. We have people getting beheaded, cut in half at the waist and slit right up the middle! See, Nikos has one massive sword which he's quite fond of swinging at people, so we get a lot of action.Acting is amateur I'm sorry to say. And while you do expect flicks like this to have amateurs, I would have to say this is quite low. I've seen plenty of other films with better actors and lower budgets so...thats probably what knocked 2 stars off my score. Don't take it too hard though. The actors manage to drag the story along and they do OK in the screaming/running/dying categories.The words "Shower Scene" always seem to attract people's attention and certainly here we have a fairly good one. In the DVD extra's we have the full uncut (if you have the unrated DVD) version. Darrien Cane is a woman who's starred in a lot of Seduction Cinema films before so you may or may not be familiar with her. Whilst on subject, this is really the only spot of nudity we have. Its fairly explicit and all the better for it if you ask me.In conclusion, yes - do go out and buy it if you like this kind of thing. By "this kind of thing" I mean low-budget horrors with an emphasis on fun, campy gore and something great to have a beer to. Let me just mention the different versions though. IMDb tells you that the UK version is cut, and it is. In the shower scene, Nikos interrupts and there is a few seconds of literal breast-ripping that the BBFC didn't like. Subsequently this isn't in the rated version. If you can, get your hands on the uncut version - either directly from Andreas Schnaas on his site or from an importer.

I do not use the term "Worst film of all time" lightly. Make no mistake, Nikos the Impaler is truly, the worst motion picture I have ever seen. And it's shocking to me this isn't in the IMDb bottom 250, let alone bottom 5. I guess some people see gore and that's all they need. Which is understandable, if you're a psychopath. So where to start? Well, lets start with the partially lobotomized director's approach at writing. I dared to put on the commentary. When he came to an early character scene, he said the following "this is one of those blah blah scenes, when we're waiting for the cool bloody stuff to happen". I'm slightly paraphrasing, but why the hell is this guy even making movies? Simply to stage over the top gore, and often rather fake looking gore? The man looks at character scenes simply as filler. Not ways to further the story, to involve the audience in their plight, to make you understand them so you can understand what they do. It's all negligible to him, and damned does it show. Because these are the most poorly illustrated, non descript, two dimensional characters you'll ever see. And there's a handful of performers who show potential here and there, but they're squandered. For a movie trying to emulate a film look, they do a terrible terrible job. And most of the characters heads are cut off! (I mean by the framing of the picture, later in the picture, their heads will be cut off.. perhaps its foreshadowing) But after doing a little research, it may in fact be the dumbbell director's fault and not the director of photography. The framing went south in a poorly done DVD transfer. After an extremely uninvolving, unbelievably poorly directed opening act, Nikos is brought back to life, and begins hacking up people in New York. Folks, that's the whole rest of the movie. I'm not kidding. Not to mention, there's one obligatory nudie shower scene simply for the hell of it. Andre, if I ever meet you in person, I want to let you know, you are the absolute worst director, in human history. Yes, I understand it's an extremely low budget film, but for the love of God, put some effort into something other than over the top, horribly unbelievable blood splatter. This movie is a crime against motion pictures in general and its success will only mean we're going to see more work from this disgustingly untalented filmmaker. And you know what's funny? I hear this is his best film! Dear Lord.

NIKOS THE IMPALER is not actual moviemaking. It's really nothing more than a group of people wondering how much carnage they can orchestrate with a limited budget. Even for those who enjoys gore, as I do occasionally, NIKOS doesn't offer enough COMPETENT gore and blood and guts to satisfy.Perhaps the real audience of NIKOS is those who doesn't require their gore to be well done. If so, then NIKOS is for them. It's mostly childish gore, and most of the killings come by way of decapitations. Really, once you've seen five characters getting their heads badly chopped off by a big sword, do you really need to see 10 more?4 out of 10(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detail review and reviews of films in this genre)