Amsterdamned

Amsterdamned is a 1988 Dutch slasher film directed and written by Dick Maas, and stars Huub Stapel, Monique van de Ven, and Serge-Henri Valcke. The plot revolves around a serial killer who uses the famed canals of the Dutch capital to murder random people, one of which involves a detective's girlfriend linked to the murders. Plot Opening in a point-of-view shot, a murderer looks around the city of Amsterdam at night through the canals. He sneaks into a Chinese restaurant's backdoor and steals a butcher knife while the cooks are not looking. The killer finds his first victim in a local prostitute who, after refusing advances from a cab driver, gets thrown out of the cab. A bag lady watches from a distance as the killer plunges the knife into the hooker and drags her back into the water. The next morning, a tour boat on the canal collides with the body of the prostitute, who has been hung on one of the small bridges. As the tourists scream, the body drags on the top of the boat until an opening shows her bloodied body and face. Assigned to the case is detective Eric Visser, a hard-boiled detective who is raising his 13-year-old daughter Anneke after a split from his ex. He spends an hour in a bath, comes home late from work, and tends to drink now and again. Nevertheless, Eric is praised as one of the best detectives on the force. His partner, Vermeer, meets Eric at the site where the body was found with fellow cop Potter attempting to get through to the baglady, who tells Eric that it was a monster who killed the prostitute and that it came out of the water. That night, two environmentalists are taking water samples in an ongoing investigation against a nearby chemical plant. However, when the killer emerges, one of the men is taken underwater and when his partner attempts to grab the anchor, he is horrified to find the man's head on the anchor. Scared, the surviving environmentalist swims to the nearby shore and calls for help when he sees a truck pass by. As the truck driver comes out from a distance, the killer grabs the environmentalist and drags him back into the water.