Census Bloodbath: Sickle And Tired

Note: The only copy of this Mandarin-language movie that I had access to DID have subtitles, but they were in Korean. So take my review with a few huge grains of salt. 

Year:
1980
Director:
Feng-Pan Yao
Cast:
Chen Lai, Chien Li, Chun Shih
Run Time:
1 hour 26 minutes

Plot: Keep Out of Danger (originally 玄機/Xuan Ji), which is set in the Ming Dynasty, follows Master Qian returning after years away. His family has moved to a new home not far from the old one, and the staff are acting strangely. When Qian's friend and the friend's sister come to stay, the three of them feel a sense of ominous dread that is not helped by the masked killer with a sickle murdering people around the property.

Analysis: Keep Out of Danger is a period piece, which is something of a rarity in the realm of the 1980s slasher, so that certainly intrigued me from the jump. The production was able to rustle up a convincing-looking estate in which to shoot the movie, too.

However, period trappings do not a good movie make. The movie needs to do something with them, and Keep Out of Danger mostly doesn't. It is certainly attempting to evoke a Gothic atmosphere (part Rebecca, part Poe, part Mysteries of Udolpho) during the hour-long stretch in which there are absolutely no kills, but self-seriousness does not suit this movie, which is tacky enough that it lards up the proceedings with shitty "hand on the shoulder" jump scares. 

It doesn't actually look that great, either. Its issues are certainly compounded by the bad VHS rip that remains the best available copy, but even without that, there are only two moments with any sort of visual flair (the best being a ghost appearing on a woman's doorstep). For the most part, director Feng-Pan Yao has the unfortunate habit of staging actors either too far to the left or right of the frame, creating these yawning gulfs of negative space that dominate the film.

Really, the only elements of Keep Out of Danger that unequivocally work are the kills. While they're not particularly gory, they do involve a lot of blood splashing around the walls, and the killer (whose mask doesn't not look like Michael Jackson - see below) wields the sickle with a demented energy that makes each blow feel brutal and unrelenting. This makes the movie even harder to sit through during the long stretch without kills, but it is better to have sickled and lost than never to have sickled at all.

Killer: The Old Couple

Final Girl: The Sister

Best Kill: I'm partial to the opening kill, which has the best buildup (a woman wanders through the old house, and at one point she is viewed through a round frame that looks like a noose - the second best shot of the movie, by a country mile).

Sign of the Times: The slasher elements do have an early 1980 sheen in that they are slightly bloodier than Halloween, but not so specifically gruesome as Friday the 13th and its imitators would soon become.

Scariest Moment: The main guy hears muffled crying echoing through the house in the middle of the night.

Weirdest Moment: Master Qian and the sister flirt while taking turns playing a flute.

Champion Dialogue: N/A

Body Count: 4

1. Yellow Dress Woman is sickled.
2. The Brother is sickled.
3. Female Servant is sickled.
4. Old Lady is sickled in the gut.

TL;DR: Keep Out of Danger is interesting in theory as a slasher period piece, but only in theory.

Rating: 5/10