When his wife Emily is brutally murdered by gangsters, Adam can’t trust the corrupt police to track down her killers, so he makes a deal with a demon: in exchange for his soul, the demon will give him the power to track down and kill everyone responsible, ending with their deformed boss, Dennis Richards.
What ensues is a surreal, gritty bloodbath set at the intersection of The Crow (1994) and Fist of the North Star, brought to you by Necrostorm and starring Emanuele De Santi, who also wrote the screenplay and makes up most of the production crew.
Tropes found in Adam Chaplin:
- Anti-Hero: Adam. While his motivations might be noble (avenging his wife's death), selling his soul to a demon and ripping people to pieces is a questionable means of doing so.
- Bittersweet Ending: Although Adam is able to avenge his wife's murder, his infernal contract means that he will go to hell rather than join his wife in heaven.
- Car Cushion: After beating Mike to a pulp, Adam chucks him out a window, where he hands on Ben and Derek's car hard enough to collapse the engine block. Weirdly, the car is still driveable.
- Creepy Crosses: The inverted cross is all over this film, from the one etched into Denny's mask to the one scarred into Adam's right shoulder as a sign of his demonic pact. At one point, Adam's cross scar spurts blood against a wall to form another cross, just before he lays into the police inspector.
- Deal with the Devil: Maybe not Satan himself, but at least a devil.
- Dirty Cop: It’s implied that the entire police force is in Dennis’s pocket.
- Dirty Coward: After the brothers' attempt to send Mike after Adam fails, Ben drives off, leaving Derek behind, and then tries to tell Denny that Derek fled on foot, rather, than, you know, stay in the car, being blind and all.
- Disposable Woman: Emily only shows up in the opening scene to give Adam a reason to go after the gangsters.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When a thief takes Adam’s bag while he’s napping, he responds by ripping his arm off.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Played with; Dennis's voice is low and guttural, and Adam often dips into Voice of the Legion due to his demonic pact, but the demon itself has a high, raspy voice.
- Gonk: Pretty much everyone in Dennis’s gang, culminating with Dennis himself, who wears a black mask, appears to have no lips, and sports clear tubes pumping fluids from one part of his body to another.
- High-Pressure Blood/Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: Blood sprays out with the force of a fire hose by the gallons when Adam rips people apart.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: One of the later kills, Derek, is impaled on a flagpole with minimal effort.
- Kensington Gore: The blood more closely resembles cherry Kool-Aid than any bodily fluid.
- Made of Plasticine: The demon has given Adam supernatural strength and speed, meaning everyone he goes up against comes apart fairly easily. Amazingly, a character whose head has been virtually pulped is still able to speak
- Man on Fire: Emily is doused in gasoline and set ablaze because she owed Dennis money.
- Monochromatic Eyes: Adam’s eyes turn solid white while he is under the demon’s influence. Additionally, Derek, who is blind, has solid black eyes.
- Police Brutality: Apparently standard operating procedure in Heaven Valley, though Adam is unaffected by a couple butt strikes from a shotgun during his own interrogation. It ends badly for everyone else involved.
- Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Adam’s typical method for beating down his enemies.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Adam carves a bloody swath through the criminal underworld on his way to the man responsible for Emily’s death.
- Shower Scene: After his rampage in the subway and police station leaves him literally drenched in blood, Adam gets a weirdly fanservicey shower scene to clean himself off, completely with closeups of his chest and abs.
- Splatter Horror: A rare version here, where all the carnage is wrought by the protagonist. Because of all the over-the-top gore and violence during even the most incidental fights, it is billed as "the bloodiest movie ever".
- Super-Speed: In addition to the Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs mentioned above, Adam can move blindingly fast, to the alarm of a would-be robber at the beginning.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Adam spends almost the entire movie shirtless, wearing at most an open leather jacket on his upper half, to give the audience a nice look at his muscular chest and abs. Any fanservice may be blunted by the carnage he instigates while so clad...
- We Named the Monkey "Jack": Adam eventually names his demon Derek, while looking at the man himself, still impaled and screaming.
