The Executioner Part II (1984)

not horrible nor great

Brilliant and touching

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A Vietnam vet turned vigilante, called 'The Executioner' (oh, brother) is taking it upon himself to, well, to execute the scum and the vermin of LA while apparently under some type of hypnosis, or during flashbacks. Okay, well, that is mostly a subplot, as two thirds of the film seems to be taken up by moronic teenagers getting stoned and pressuring a girl to go into prostitution, and more Vietnam flashbacks. Horrendous acting by a cast of mostly (deservedly) unknown actors, fight scenes seemingly choreographed by junior high school students, and awful dubbing dominate this zero budget Z-movie. A slightly amusing exploitation flick with hilarious dialogue, but even with a run-time of one hour and twenty minutes, it goes on far too long. If a sequel had ever been made, it probably would have been titled Executioner, Part I.

In Vietnam 1970, there were a bunch of American guys who were fighting and trying to survive. Now, back in America, there is a killer on the loose who calls himself The Executioner. He is no ordinary killer, though, but a vigilante: a man who kills criminals with guns, broken glass shards and live grenades.This film was directed by James Bryan. Not sure who that is, actually. And why is it "part 2"? No idea.The exploitation nature of this film shows up in the first ten minutes, when a group of guys brutally rapes a woman on a rooftop while the neighbors just sort of watch and consider whether or not they should help the woman. Luckily, they are stopped by the Executioner! There is a scene that is a bad advertisement for Miller High Life, with two guys fixing a car and talking about how fast time goes by. Then, in the middle of guy time, some thugs show up to steal their tires and a fight breaks out, complete with sound effects and a song ripped off from "Shaft".There's a visible poster for "Hot Teenage Assets" and another film... but if you know why, you are a better detective than I am.Thoroughly entertaining film with bad dialogue, cheesy explosions and the inevitable Vietnam flashback. A must see? No. But pretty decent for what it is.

Now, I watched this on a Grindhouse collection DVD, in no way shape or form was I expecting it to be good. I wanted a bad movie, and I thought I knew what I was getting into. However, the poster lied to me. When I first saw the mustachioed police sergeant I thought I was going to get the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage".Instead I got about 3 scenes of actual executioning and the majority about some teenage brat pack reject who spends the movie getting high and giving into peer pressure and becoming a hooker for heroin. Through this she effectively became the main character, and in her duty as protagonist, she cries while her friend yells at her about how easy it is to have sex with strangers for money and why she's a loser for not wanting to do such. She eventually gets kidnapped and raped, oh joy, and finally ends up accomplishing almost nothing in what felt like three hours.Now, the executioning. There were some glorious scenes of grenades and greasers flash mobbing a deli. There was aforementioned mustache-man running into homeless people and boxes for no reason, there were random terribly choreographed fight scenes. This is about a total of 15 minutes, or so it feels. The majority of the movie is either the girl having a moral dilemma about how uncool and unhigh she will be if she doesn't allow herself to be raped by a mafia sadist, or Vietnam flashbacks.Oh, and there's some random news anchor who talks like a gypsy and looks like a poor man's Fran Drescher. The pointlessness of her character, versus her screen time is astonishing. The only way you can really grasp how unimportant she is is to actually watch.Stuff blew up, but not enough. Not enough to justify the hour and fifteen minutes of my life I dedicated to this viewing. Too much rape, not enough vigilante murder sprees.

Is it a sequel? Is it a rip-off? Is it the biggest pile of crap you've ever seen or the most entertaining Z-grade exploitation movie ever made? Well actually, the answer to all of these questions (except maybe the first one) is a straight and simple YES! This is clearly a part two to *something*, only nobody knows exactly what the original film was. It's also a shameless cash-in on the contemporary very popular vigilante action movies, like for example "Death Wish" or more particularly "The Exterminator". The film is also irredeemably bad, with a totally unoriginal screenplay, an incoherent structure and awful … AWFUL acting performances. But, and for the exact same reasons, "The Executioner Part II" is simultaneously one of the most hilariously entertaining movies of its type I've ever seen! The movie opens with vague and random footage of the war in Vietnam, trying to dramatically introduce buddy soldiers Mike and Roger nearly getting killed by friendly fire. Back at home in the big city, Mike works as a mechanic in his own garage and Roger suddenly became a prominent police inspector. The rotten, depressing and crime-infested city is ruled by a perverted gangster known as 'The Tattooed Man", who rapes under aged drug-addicted girls and bribes the local politicians. There's also a bloodthirsty avenging angel prowling the streets, and it takes Roger an awful long time before realizing his buddy Mike is the one executing all the criminals like they're Charlies. The film isn't too gory (they probably didn't have the budget for fake blood) but the overall atmosphere is raw and very aggressive. I mentioned it before, but I simply have to mention the acting performances again! They should have handed out Oscars to everyone involved in this laugh riot production, particularly to the woman who plays the journalist and to the dope-smoking teenage girls. The journalist can hardly pronounce a word correctly and the girls act like Beavis & Butt-Head. "The Executioner Part II" is deliciously rancid 80's cheese, impossible to reward with a rating higher than five because it truly really honestly is terrible, but nonetheless highly recommended.