Freddy, Jason and Hannibal Lecter have nothing on Barbara, the fashion-obsessed murderess at the centre of Sexykiller.
Spanish director Miguel Marti brings his savage creation to the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Midnight Madness programme, where it will make its world premiere Friday night.
Barbara is unlike any movie serial killer you've seen before - for one thing, she's female. Macarena Gomez, who completely embodies the character, said she was thrilled to play such a strong female character, even if she was doing some pretty nasty things.
"The famous characters in horror movies were played by men always," Gomez tells
CityNews.ca. "You have Hannibal Lecter, for example, so I think it's fantastic that the assassin is a woman, and the fact that nothing happens to her. She has so much power. I love that. Come on, I think every woman would love to be (a bit) like Barbara."
Sexykiller centres around a series of murders on the campus of a medical school - no one would ever suspect that the lovely, tiny Barbara, who models her life around that of Barbie-like character Cindy Superstar, might be involved.
It's clear the Madrid-born Marti is a film buff - he makes tongue-in-cheek references not just to other horror flicks such as Friday the 13th and The Silence of the Lambs, but to films from all genres including Titanic and Taxi Driver.
"The movie is totally full of little 'gags', so that people who like genre films, action films, comedy films, they start to identify a bit with the genre, and therefore with our story," he smiles.
The slender Gomez worked out with a personal trainer for a year to build up enough muscle to play the part of Barbara.
"I'm very skinny and I needed to put weight on and get muscle, so I could hold the guns and hold them for hours," she explains. "I loved that process, that was the best."
Though the gore factor is high, Sexykiller's violence is more comic than mean-spirited, and the accessory-loving Barbara has the potential to be an enduring character in the genre.
"The truth is I would love to continue working with the character of Barbara," Marti enthuses. "I think she could tell many more stories."
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Scene from Sexykiller courtesy Toronto International Film Festival