USA
Review: JA Kerswell
A serial killer dressed as a hippie is killing horny, college-aged couples down on Chicago’s lakefront in a muddy monstrosity that looks like it was shot with a family camcorder. However, as cheap and ugly as it is, 555 has its coarse charms.
Good cop Detective Johnny Haller (B.K. Smith) and bad cop, his abrasive colleague Sgt. Conner (Greg Kerouac), investigate the brutal slaying of a young, canoodling couple (in which the man is decapitated before his girlfriend is slashed to death and then raped). They suspect the lone witness, Colonel Wayne (Charles Fuller), who claims he was out for a nighttime walk and stumbled across the scene. He says he saw a hippie hanging around the area, which he says was strange since he hadn’t seen one since the 1960s. This elicits a “C’mon, Colonel. No one dresses like that anymore. Your whole story sounds like a crock of shit,” from Sgt. Conner. They become even more suspicious of Wayne when, during an interview at his home, Haller notes his collection of machetes and other sharp weapons hanging in his den. The suspect (and obvious red herring) counters, “Why in the hell aren’t they looking for that hippie?”
The detectives soon realize it is a race against time when they learn this is only the latest massacre by the hippie psycho, who kills five couples over five nights every five years in different cities. Also investigating the deaths is a sassy reporter, Susan Rather (Mara-Lynn Bastain), who is having an affair with Haller and has a fractious relationship with Conner (she calls him a “prick,” and he calls her a “cunt”).
As more couples who engage in light frottage fall victim to the killer in the ratty wig, will the authorities finger their man before he kills his full quota and disappears for another five years?
555 is not a good movie. Even the best-looking copy (it was shot on one-inch video) looks like an nth-generation VHS dupe. That said, it isn’t quite as amateurish as some other SOV slashers from around the time. The acting ranges from appalling to low-rent acceptable. Most memorable is Bastian as the reporter, who isn’t above flashing her boobs to get a scoop. She also has a natty line in comebacks, saying she’d rather superglue her vagina shut than have sex with Sgt. Connor.
The selling point of 555 (and how it was pimped in the back pages of horror mags back in the day) is the not-really-that-bad gore effects, with a fairly convincing decapitation and resulting severed head (which features on the video cover). However, given its low budget, many of the killings are off-screen or are pure squeezy-ketchup-bottle stuff. Admittedly, even when they are good, the gore effects are somewhat undercut by dubbing screams with what sounds like a chimp laughing. Add some topless nudity and obscured necrophiliac sex, and it is a heady, messy, and purposefully outrageous mix. Unfortunately, there is no attempt at anything approaching suspense; the killer just enters (seemingly without the couple noticing an aging hippie shambling towards them) before offing them with his curved blade.
Without giving away the killer's identity (unless I missed it), there never seems to be a reason given for him to be dressed as a hippie (though some synopses suggest it is the outfit he wore during his first murders in the 1960s, which makes sense). Another clue might be that director Wally Koz later moved from Chicago (where 555 was shot) to Arizona, in his words, to get away from “eco-wacko” liberals, which could be seen as a dig at them. According to his 2006 obituary, Koz was an Air Force vet, adventurer, expert diver, businessman, and gold digger. Some inspiration for 555 might have come from his own brief acting career. The Chicago Tribune reported in August 1984: “It hasn't been the best summer for Chicago actor Wally Koz. On July 11, his charter boat burned and sank, then he got a role in ‘Savage Beliefs’, which is filming here, and it turns out his character gets beheaded halfway through the picture.” (Note: SAVAGE BELIEFS is a low-budget 1984 indie slasher film centered on the Chicago hardcore punk band scene that was considered lost until it gained some showings of its rough cut in 2016).
Koz was inspired to make 555 after watching many cheap horror movies and telling his wife he could make a better one, despite having no filmmaking experience. The jury is well and truly out on that point, but the film (or rather video)—rough edges and all—remains a gnarly, abrasive, and smudgy slice of micro-budgeted mayhem.
BODY COUNT 11:
Female 5 / Male 6
Not-So-Random Moments - 555 (1988)
