Scalper (AKA Scalper: Night Caller II) (2023) Review
Everyone around psychic Clementine Carter is being brutally murdered by a masked killer dubbed ‘The Scalper.’ Is it dead psycho Andrew Lubitz back from the grave, a copycat killer, or a horror beyond imagination? Clementine must use her second sight to stay one step ahead of the maniac’s blade to solve the mystery.
SCALPER, written and directed by Chad Ferrin, is utterly bonkers throughout. There’s no letting up on the action or kills right from the very start, in fact there’s little in the way of a pause for breath throughout. The first kill is surprising – a male victim bent over, trousers and pants pulled down and a knife put where the sun doesn’t shine, in and out, in and out – and the gore, courtesy of special effects supervisor Joe Castro never disappoints.
In reading other online reviews it’s evident that this isn’t for all tastes but for me, it was refreshingly ‘nuts’ throughout. My attention span was not swayed by any beeps or other notification sounds from my nearby phone and that is rare nowadays, we’ve all been conditioned now to have the attention span of a gnat. I just loved how the killer got away with so much during daytime hours without anyone as much as sparing them a second glance, or even a first.
There are elements of THE EYES OF LAURA MARS, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE FRIGHTENERS in the mix (which is fitting as one of that film’s stars – Jake Busey – headlines here) and I understand that this is a direct sequel to NIGHT CALLER (which I must confess to having not seen). However, SCALPER works well as a standalone and I didn’t feel that I was missing anything when it came to viewing this. This has the potential to become a cult classic.
Teaser