The Film: 3.5/5

There are over 165 canals running the length of ten miles through the Netherlands’ capital of Amsterdam, a city with 750,000 residents, one of whom is a serial killer who dons scuba gear every night to stalk and slaughter their prey using the cold and murky depths of the ocean as cover. The citizens are terrified and the authorities are baffled because witnesses are nowhere to be found and it’s quite difficult for a killer to be captured when they can easily vanish into the sea under cover of darkness.

The only man who can bring an end to this veritable “Jack the Dripper” and their reign of terror is Eric Visser (Huub Stapel), the city’s top detective with facial hair that plays by its own rules in Amsterdamned, the stylish and entertaining Dutch thriller from director Dick Maas (The Lift) that made it to American shores during Thanksgiving of 1988 as a little holiday surprise from the now-defunct Vestron Pictures and makes its Region A Blu-ray bow courtesy of Blue Underground.

Despite running a little too long for a popcorn thriller at 113 minutes (a running time that could have been pared down by removing extraneous political squabbling that has no effect on the narrative), Amsterdamned hits all the genre’s familiar with levelheaded precision and a grounded sensibility that keeps the more absurd moments from taking the entire production off the rails. The first two-thirds of the film is an atmospheric horror tale with a remorseless psychopath who is powerful enough to grab his victims from shore and pull them screaming to their bloody doom, but the final forty minutes chucks this chilling build-up into the drink for an extended action-packed finale complete with car and speedboat chases and a frustrating twist involving the identity of the murderer. It’s as if one of the better Halloween sequels suddenly turned into John Woo’s Face/Off in its third act.

At least the stunt work in these scenes is damn impressive. Visser pursues a murder suspect fleeing from the police on a motorcycle down the narrow streets of the city, with Maas capturing every angle of the chase with multiple cameras mounted on the vehicles and around the locations. However, it’s the speedboat chase, taking place during broad daylight, that threatens the film by taking it to a level of ridiculousness from which it almost doesn’t recover, but it’s still fun to watch. Maas’ thirst for high style in his films is evident from the opening credits sequence that follows a POV shot of the killer swimming the canals at night, observing human behavior on the shore while silently scoping out potential victims. 

Visser is given everything a two-dimensional cop hero in a violent mystery requires – wisecracking daughter (Tatum Dagelet), love interest who ends up playing a role in the investigation (Monique van de Ven), and even an expendable partner (Wim Zomer) he can banter with when the plot is just slugging along in search of its next motivational scene. There are even a few red herrings any conventional thriller worth its salt needs to keep the audience unsure at all times, including van de Ven’s character Laura – a beautiful art museum tour guide who has recently taken up diving as a form of therapy – and her psychiatrist and friend Martin (Hidde Maas), himself an experienced diver who unsurprisingly may not be all that he first seems.

The first and second acts of Amsterdamned are rich with gruesome killings, severed limbs, dangling corpses, and a vivid color scheme of cool blues, blazing reds, and luxurious oranges provided by cinematographer Marc Felperlaan that adds menace and mood to those brief moments prior to each victim’s death. Director Maas, who also wrote the screenplay and composed the film’s foreboding synth score, does an admirable job of staging these sequences with an emphasis wisely placed on mounting tension instead of spurting stage blood, and he manages to balance the hefty cast and give most of the major and supporting players a moment or two to shine while making sure to keep the weary but determined Visser front and center. None of the actors really stand out, but they perform their roles as well as the material requires (especially Stapel, good here as Visser).

Audio/Video: 3.5/5

Late last year Amsterdamned was ironically the victim of a butchering when a Dutch Blu-ray edition was issued with a transfer not approved by the director shorn one of the film’s gorier sequences. Blue Underground presents the film in its uncut form and original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio in a new 1080p high-definition derived from a 2k resolution scan and restoration of the original camera negative created under Maas’ supervision. Early reviews of this release reported that the transfer suffered from compression issues, but my copy appeared free of any severe digital defects, including macro blocking. Picture quality falls short of stunning for several reasons, but as far as this film goes, it can’t get much better than this. Grain is low and consistent to maintain a true filmic texture, with the nighttime scenes looking particularly great thanks to some eye-popping use of color and improved black levels that keeps the action visible and coherent while never sacrificing the atmosphere (the latter could also be applied to a crucial set-piece filmed underwater in a sunken vessel). Outdoor exteriors filmed during the day also benefit from an upgrade in clarity and sharpness, and skin tones appear warm and natural. Certain scenes bear the mark of liberally employed digital noise reduction, but Blue Underground didn’t resort to this practice unless it seemed necessary.

This Blu-ray has been given a trio of suitable audio options, beginning with a Dutch DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track created exclusively for this release that improves upon the original two-channel Dolby Stereo mix (also included here as a DTS-HD MA track) with greater depth and range in the more active sequences and a welcome absence of damage and distortion. Purists will appreciate the inclusion of the 2.0 track and American viewers who remember the film from its brief theatrical play and long shelf life on home video (both thanks to Vestron) can look forward to hearing the English language dub track (featuring the voices of stars Stapel and van de Wen, as both spoke great English) recreated here as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. The film can also be viewed with a French Dolby Digital 2.0 track. Three subtitle choices have also been provided – English for the Dutch audio, English SDH, and Spanish.

Extras: 4/5

Haas and editor Hans van Dongen are joined by moderator David Gregory for an excellent audio commentary track where the participants provide listeners with an abundance of production history and behind-the-scenes stories on the creation of Amsterdamned. Both Haas and van Dongen have great memories of the shoot and its eventual reception at the box office in their native country and around the world, and Gregory does well to keep the track mostly free of dead air with intelligent questions and observations of his own.

“The Making of Amsterdamned” (36 minutes) is a vintage documentary (in Dutch, with English subtitles) examining the making of the film with interviews with Maas and his cast and crew and plenty of behind-the-scenes footage giving us a detailed look at the work that went into the various action sequences in the thrilling finale. Leading man Stapel is the subject of the new interview featurette “Tales from the Canal” (9 minutes, English), in which the actor talks about his involvement in the film and his professional relationship with Maas while being filmed in a boat traveling through the canals. The second and last new featurette, “Damned Stuntwork” (18 minutes, English), finds stunt coordinator Dickey Beer starting off by discussing his early days as a movie stuntman (playing a dead body in a jeep next to James Caan in A Bridge Too Far) before segueing into later work on Return of the Jedi and the Indiana Jones films and collaborating with Maas on the conception and execution of the memorable chase scenes in Amsterdamned.

The supplements conclude with the Dutch trailer (3 minutes), U.S. trailer (2 minutes), a VHS-sourced music video directed by Maas for Lois Lane’s soundtrack tune “Amsterdamned” (3 minutes), and an extensive still gallery of production photos and international poster art. A Region 1 DVD copy has also been included in this set as well as reversible cover art and a collector’s booklet featuring the essay “Canal Plus Murder: The Story of Amsterdamned” written by former Fangoria editor-in-chief Michael Gingold.

Overall: 4/5

Amsterdamned is a fine little thriller that manages to keep from being too familiar to fans of the genre with its original location and killer. It’s fun and often suspenseful, the cast performs excellent, and director Dick Maas juices up a clichéd narrative with lurid style and some thrilling action sequences. Despite the imperfect transfer, Blue Underground’s Region A Blu-ray release earns high scores in other areas and comes with a solid recommendation from yours truly if you desire something more offbeat and exotic in your violent cinematic mysteries.