You are one weird dude.
Anybody who saw 2012's Found is unlikely to forget Headless, the proto-slasher flick (vintage 1978) watched by its pre-teen protagonist during a sleepover with his soon-to-be ex-best friend. Viewers only got to see a few minutes of the Headless Killer in action, though, which the creative team behind Found has rectified by making an entire feature about him. Shane Beasley is back in the rubber skull-face mask, but this time Arthur Cullipher (who headed up the special effects crew on the first film) has moved into the director's chair, with Nathan Erdel handling scripting duties. The result is a film that's utterly depraved at the same time it lovingly recreates the look and feel of a grindhouse film of the period.
Much like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse came equipped with several fake trailers (one of which got turned into a real movie, two if you count Hobo with a Shotgun), Headless is preceded by a spot for the very fake and frankly adorable Wolf-Baby. (Side note: I don't need to see a full-length Wolf-Baby, guys.) After that, it's off to the races as we observe the Killer as he goes about his routine, sleeping in a cage and going out at the behest of a little boy in a skull mask (Kaden Miller) who directs his every move. This is especially disturbing in light of the fact that his m.o. (as established in Found) is abducting young women, mutilating them with a machete, gouging out their eyes and slurping them down, and finally beheading them and getting off by penetrating their severed heads. (If that sounds too gross, be aware that this sequence of events happens multiple times.)
On a parallel track, Cullipher and Erdel draw us into the lives of roller rink concession stand worker Jess (Kelsey Carlisle) and the people around her, including her slutty best friend Betsy (Ellie Church), her scumbag boss Slick Vic (Brian Williams), and her layabout boyfriend Pete (Dave Parker), who can't hold down a job because that would interfere with his lousy band, The Dead Bugs. All of them are, in one way or another, fodder for the Killer's insatiable bloodlust, but it's refreshing that they're given more to do than just be jerks to each other until the machete-wielding maniac cuts them down. Even more welcome, though, are the flashbacks to the Killer's less-than-happy childhood, which goes a long way toward explaining his antisocial tendencies. Usually I'm at the forefront of those decrying the need to give backstories to established movie villains like Darth Vader, Leatherface, and Michael Myers, but in this instance it totally works. Then again, it helps that the unnamed Killer's horrific past is directly tied to his horrendous present. Headless is a film that makes literal the adage that the child is the father to the man.