Review by Rich Wilson
Stars Dmitriy Orlov, Svetlana Metkina, Aleksandr Vysokovskiy | Written by Viktor Sorokin & Valery Krechetov
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 78 minutes | Directed by Igor Shavlak
For around the first 10 minutes, Trackman is a tense, violent thriller, with the planning of a bank heist intercut with scenes of the robbery itself. As the raid goes wrong the three criminals take female hostages and escape through the bleak streets, the camera moving and energetic and the fast action scored with a pulsing soundtrack. Director Shavlak has obviously been studying his Tarantino collection. It’s a cracking opening, and for a while you’ll think you’ve stumbled across a lost gem.
You haven’t. The problems start when the gang head into the sewers to evade capture, because as the daylight disappears so does the film; Trackman literally runs out of energy. It’s not unusual for a film to start in one genre and then switch, but in this case it’s handled so badly you’ll be wishing this was a heist thriller, not a horror. Heading underground has been planned with an escape route plotted through the endless tunnels by a contact who is due to meet the gang, but has been slayed by a massive, hulking figure, leaving the criminals and the hostages lost and easy pickings for the killer.
It’s a decent and, usually for a slasher picture, intelligent set-up, but the makers of this movie have no idea how to run with it. There’s a lot of walking down corridors, a lot of is-there-or-isn’t-there movement in the shadows, but after around thirty minutes you start to realise that nothing is actually happening. One of the crooks tells a story about Chernobyl victims, deformed and insane, who were dumped in the tunnels with only one apparent survivor, but this background on Trackman is the only shred of back-story any of the characters are given.
No reason is given for the maniac’s love of eyeballs or why he collects them, and the murders and removal of the eyes are relatively bloodless; more gore is shown on the crude crayon drawings that accompany the opening credits. In a genre overstuffed with kills and splatter you need to give the audience something to get behind, and some decent wet-work can often compensate for lack of plot. But with nothing of substance, Trackman commits one of the ultimate movie sins; It’s boring. Even with the short running time of 78 minutes you’ll be checking your watch.
The only real plus point is that visually, it looks great – Shavlak knows how to shoot atmosphere and we get plenty of nice angled shots, full of hazy lighting and the classic lumbering killer walk from Trackman. But while it’s all very pretty, there’s no suspense, pacing or action to back it up, and when the credits roll following a very vague explanation of who the killer could be you’ll be wondering if maybe you fell asleep. Did you miss something? Not really. Russia are currently making some very good cinema but this oddity from 2007 is a bad example, and it’s a mystery why Lionsgate have pushed this out four years later. If you’re looking for underground horror then try the classic Death Line (a.k.a Raw Meat) from the early Seventies, or re-watch Christopher Smith’s very similar and infinitely superior Creep. This has all been done before, and much better.
EXTRAS You get a choice of subtitles and scene selection, and that’s your lot.