Intensive Care (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Dorna van RouveroyRelease Date(s)
1991 (March 31, 2026)Studio(s)
Cineventura/CNR Film Releasing (Vinegar Syndrome Labs)- Film/Program Grade: D+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
Ho-boy. Entertainingly awful, Intensive Care (1991) is a Dutch-made horror film “starring” George Kennedy, though he’s largely gone from the film after the first couple of minutes. The first and, so far, last Dutch horror film directed by a woman, these components alone intrigue. As one of the probably 10 people who actually saw My Lovely Monster (also 1991)—a German-made horror comedy starring Forrest J Ackerman—during its original theatrical run, I confess to being curiously drawn to these oddball multinational productions.
Surgeon Dr. Bruckner (Kennedy, speaking his few lines with an accent, possibly German) loses his cool in the middle of surgery, stabbing at the internal organs of a patient before storming out. Further agitating Bruckner, the chief of surgery (Jules Croiset) arrives with bad news: the hospital wants no part of Brucker’s revolutionary brain swap/shock therapy research. On the drive home, Brucker collides head-on with a semi carrying flammable liquid (an impressively big explosion). Amazingly, Brucker somehow survives, albeit horribly burned and in a coma.
Seven years later, without explanation Bruckner awakens, this Dr. Frankenstein ironically now a Frankenstein’s Monster (and, from this point forward, no longer played by Kennedy). He kills a number of people at the hospital, then embarks, for no clear reason, on a murderous rampage of suburban Amsterdam in scenes straight out of Halloween. (This story is set during the New Year’s holiday.) We’re introduced to principal characters Peter (Koen Wauters, Dutch singer and TV presenter), who pines after next-door neighbor Amy (Nada Van Nie), but she’s dating leather-clad Ted (Dick van den Toorn), Amy regarding Peter “like a brother.” Amy and Peter do, however, get together to play music with Amy’s kid brother, Bobby (Michiel Hess), on the piano, Peter on saxophone, and she on guitar. Rather than run like the Dickens to the nearest police station once Bruckner makes his presence known, the young folk decide to have it out with the unstoppable monster, arming themselves with a power drill and, absurdly, fireworks.
The movie is somewhat interesting in how it seems to be set in Washington State, in the U.S., but because it was actually made in the Netherlands gets lots of little details wrong. The architecture, street signs, and especially a pay phone figuring into the plot are all just a wee bit off. Like in Halloween, a TV plays whatever the Dutch thought Americans watched on New Year’s night—apparently including a speech by then-President George H. W. Bush and the Laurel & Hardy short comedy The Fixer Uppers (1935). Two versions were shot simultaneously with the same cast, one in Dutch (excepting Kennedy, presumably), and one entirely in English. The English, international version runs just 76 minutes and the acting of these Dutch thespians is generally competent though, again, just slightly off. The miscast actor playing Ted, for instance, is a complete pushover, a doughboy, not the intimidating tough guy he’s alleged to be. And, as Amy, Nada van Nie’s screams are hilariously unconvincing.
By 1991, George Kennedy was in the middle of a career resurgence, spurred by his role as Leslie Nielsen’s partner in the Naked Gun movies, the first of two sequels also released in 1991. Why would he stoop to a movie as dire as Intensive Care? Apparently, Kennedy liked to work, doing three pictures in one year as late as 2005, and appearing in his last, The Gambler in 2014, barely two years before his death at 91. Maybe he wanted to visit Amsterdam.
Except for a brief scene in the middle, where a TV news program airs part of an old interview with Bruckner, Kennedy is effectively gone after the first reel. As the monster Bruckner, a painfully obvious, uncredited double replaces him who’s a hundred pounds lighter, several inches shorter (Kennedy was 6’4”) but a lot faster on his feet. In his brief hospital scenes, the actor’s knees are clearly shot and Kennedy virtually waddles.
The movie plays as if the screenwriters had looked at a bunch of ’70s and early ’80s American slasher films, already passé by 1991, and gathered together a big batch of genre tropes and stock characters. Except for the wonderfully screwy opening scenes with Kennedy, Intensive Care exhibits almost zero originality. The cinematography is fairly good for what, presumably, was a relatively low-budget movie, but the movie generates little suspense and fewer surprises. And a couple of moments are completely botched. In one scene Brucker, in the backseat of a patrol car, surprises a policeman in the driver seat, somehow stabbing him directly in the eye... while positioned directly behind him.
Vinegar Syndrome’s all-Region Blu-ray offers only the 76-minute English-language international version, though there’s a clip or two from the Dutch version in the extra features. Newly scanned in 2K from the original 35mm camera negative, unperceptively augmented by a 35mm print, the 1.85:1 widescreen presentation is generally excellent, with a pleasing film grain present, though the opening and end titles appear to have been redone via digital video. The DTS-HD 5.1 surround audio is excellent, though a couple of inapt sound effects here and there inadvertently add to the laughs.
The bountiful extra features include a new audio commentary track by Danish film historians Yfke van Berckelaer and Bram Roza; 35 Years Later, a 23-minute interview with director Dorna van Rouveroy, who seems to take the film way too seriously. Also included is nine minutes of behind-the-scenes footage and an international trailer.
Not anything approaching good but, for horror fans, entertaining and unusual, and for them only it’s recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV