After discovering (much to my surprise) that my DVD collection features more movies starring Robert Englund than any other actor (with Steven Seagal coming a close second and Kurt Russell in third – don’t judge me!) my wife kindly sought and purchased for me a lesser-known horror movie to help complete the accidental collection: 'Heartstopper' (2006).
Englund plays a local sheriff who has recently captured an infamous murderer and practitioner of the ‘usual dark’ magic antics, involving tattoos, possession and cheating death. Once the criminal is put to death, his body is taken to a local hospital for autopsy and incineration. Of course, things don’t get that far and once the cadaver is up and walking around the hospital in search of one particularly special patient things get ugly…
The casting of Robert Englund is definitely the selling point here, his name and image featuring prominently on the cover-art (at least the R2 version). But this turns out to be one of those movies where the big name is only actually present for just under the first half of the movie. However, it has to be said that he does do a good enough job of carrying the production whilst featured and it is admittedly refreshing to see him play a good guy for once.
There’s enough crimson to keep gore-hounds reasonably satisfied and the rest of the no-name cast is perfectly adequate. With a standard cat & mouse plot ending in a truly bizarre finale this can only be classed as an obviously cheap, appropriately short and strictly average horror movie. I have to admit that whilst it just about kept my attention for its running time I was not overly impressed by it and would give it an AMC.
Finally, some may be interested to learn that this movie was directed by Bob Keen – the British FX maestro probably most famous for the gruesomely graphic introduction of ‘dead Frank’ in the original Hellraiser.
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