I hate to say it but I'M SICK OF ZOMBIES!!!! It's been done to goddam death by now. As much I am a fan of George Romero's early work, the later films just were indigestible to me. Now it's zombie-this and zombie-that. The great GM would do well to take a tip from his colleague David Cronenberg and make low-budget interesting non-horror films. I think this might have been an attempt.
Now, aside from Night of the Living Dead (1968) the absolutely most-re-watched GM film is Martin (1976) and my all-time fave is There's Always Vanilla (1971) which I could go on and on and on about but suffice to say that it's Boogie Nights with actors in TV commercials (which George R. did) instead of porn.
OK that being said Bruiser starts out with echoes of Martin with the main character listening to a radio call-in show. This guy gets dumped on by his cheating wife, his embezzling best friend and his sleazy coked-up boss until one day he wakes up and his face is a white mask. No explanations, very Kafka-esque. But does it really change him and make him into a monster or has he just snapped like any normal guy would? We don't really know.
There are a lot of visual references to Italian Euro-horror including Suspiria (a body crashes through a window and hangs), whch isn't surprising singe Romero worked with Dario Argento on Dawn of the Dead (1978). There are also references to Bell From Hell such as a view through a fish tank and the making of the mold of white masks for a party.
As much as I wanted to hate this, I found it a cut above the usual drek. With Tom Atkins as a cop.
