Destroyer (1988)

A serial killer who was executed by electrocution starts to murder a film crew making a movie in the now closed down prison.

Genre

Horror, Slasher

Characters/Groups

Susan Malone - Deborah Foreman

David Harris - Clayton Rohner

Ivan Moser - Lyle Alzado

Robert Edwards - Anthony Perkins

Russell - Tobias Andersen

Sharon Fox - Lannie Garrett

Rewire - Jim Turner

Warden Karsh - Pat Mahoney

Fingers - David Kristin

Bea - Vanessa Townsell

The Cabbie - Stanley Kirk

Officer Callahan - Bernie Welch

Len - Robert Himber

Foley - Eric Meyer

Tommy - Kurt Hubler

Mac - Jacqui Clay

Boomer - Tim Drnec

Wardrobe Lady - Margaret Sjoberg

Actor - Michael Ford

Prison Guards - Charles Hutchinson, Craig McNeil, Chris Lotz, Dutch Shindler, David Clemens, A.G. Gilliam, John Larsen, Damien Veatch, and Joseph Wilkins

Game Show Host - Steve Kelley

Game Show Announcer - Gary Owens

Susan Starr - Cathy Eberhard

Newscaster - Chuck Henry

Game Show Contestants - Patricia A. Dodd, Ronnie L. Jessie, Paul Blount, and C.J. Pier

Game Show Hostess 2 - Laura Dewild

Woman in Diner - Bea Hurwitz

Film Crew - Toby Kanter, Tammy Snyder, Linda Scott, and Jay Dee Holland

Death House Dolls - Dyanna Jamiel, Chris Gabriel, Karen Van Essen, Debra Brown, Jedida Deruyter, Gizzella Firtha, Kathy Goodwin, Lydia Madrid, Patty Mikles, Kristine Salazar, and Wendy Zielinski

Sirens in the Shower - Deanna Boekhoff, Teena Donaldson, Andrea Finegold, Kelly Holsopple, Suzaan Maack, and Antoinette Piccari

Witnesses - Cindy Coburn, Jerry Steinmeyer, Belva Gilliam, David Langdon, Phillip Lazar, and Henry L. Musmanno

Townspeople - Deborah Hauck, Irene Kirk, Shannon Plowman, and Beverly Steinmeyer

Character thumbnails with links to profiles

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  Susan Malone

• 

  David Harris

• 

  Ivan Moser

• 

  Robert Edwards

• 

  Russell

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  Sharon Fox

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  Rewire

• 

  Warden Karsh

• 

  Fingers

• 

  Bea

• 

  The Cabbie

• 

  Officer Callahan

• 

  Len

• 

  Foley

• 

  Tommy

• 

  Mac

• 

  Boomer

• 

  Wardrobe Lady

• 

  Actor

• 

  Prison Guards

• 

  Game Show Host

• 

  Game Show Announcer

• 

  Susan Starr

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  Newscaster

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  Game Show Contestants

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  Game Show Hostess 2

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  Woman in Diner

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  Film Crew

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  Death House Dolls

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  Sirens in the Shower

• 

  Witnesses

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  Townspeople

Detailed Synopsis

A priest walks down a prison corridor. Game Show Announcer on the television announces that the contestants will be competing for over 100,000 dollars. Ivan Moser stares intensely at the television as Game Show Host introduces Susan Starr and then announces the Game Show Contestants. The priest sits down next to Ivan and asks for the television to be turned off, but Ivan demands it stay on. Ivan continues to stare intently at Susan. He is lead out of his cell by Prison Guards and led to an electric chair as Witnesses watch. As the priest recites the last rites to Ivan, Ivan asks the television outside the cell be faced towards him. The executioner and Warden Karsh walk into the cell and Karsh tells Ivan he has been sentenced to die in the electric chair. The executioner pulls the lever and the power suddenly goes out due to a power surge. As the priest stands near Ivan, Ivan grabs him and breaks his neck and then grabs the executioner and rips off their mask, revealing them to be Susan Malone, who then wakes up from a nightmare.

She wakes up David Harris, who was the priest in her dream, and rips off the newspaper clippings from the wall David had collected about the Ivan case. David comforts her and tells her it is just a dream. Sharon Fox yells at the prison crew actors as they chase her and the Death House Dolls actresses sit in their cells looking bored. Sharon starts to complain about the actors chasing her and Robert Edwards calls cut. Robert criticizes the speed Sharon was running and she complains that her smock is too tight as Mac fixes her makeup and hair and the Wardrobe Lady checks Sharon's outfit. Robert then jokes with Len that the other day Sharon complained it was too loose. Robert asks Rewire if he is ready and they redo the scene. On the television, a Newscaster tells the audience that Greystone Productions is going to be filming in the local area. Bea asks Fingers for her customer's food orders and then walks over and asks Karsh if he would like more coffee. Karsh ignores her and watches the television as David is interviewed and he says the prison riots which closed the state penitentiary were due to the brutal treatment of the prisoners and blames Karsh.

As David and Susan arrive at the penitentiary, The Cabbie, stops David and asks him to drop off a package for him. When David asks him why he wouldn't bring the package in, The Cabbie tells him he won't go inside the penitentiary since the riot. David picks up the package, which happens to be a dummy of Sharon. He tells Susan a story about conjoined twins who were sentenced to death when one murdered the other one's husband for having an affair with her twin. As they are making their way inside the prison, Susan and David see Russell and Russell comments how much the dummy resembles Sharon. They walk into the main office while Tommy is making a xerox of his face. Tommy sees the dummy and asks, just as Russell did, if it is anatomically correct. Karsh arrives at the penitentiary and demands Russell let him in. As she is walking to the set by herself, Susan finds a doll hanging from a noose with two notes, one with her name and the other saying the writer is all hers. Ivan then stares up at Susan, but stays hidden. Sharon continues to be difficult on set and when she criticizes Actor for touching her too much, he comments on her promiscuity. She calls David a pervert for writing the film and Karsh walks onto the set and tells Sharon he liked her other film and she calls this film crap. Karsh walks up to David and tells him he knows he has been asking questions about the prison riot. Karsh then warns David to stop asking questions.

David brings the dummy to Rewire and almost burns the script when he places it on the arm of the still working electric chair. Rewire shows David, Ivan's boot he found from when Ivan was electrocuted. While Karsh is in the restroom, someone burns him to death with a blow torch. Susan walks onto the set and a Film Crew member bets her ten dollars she will miss the inflatable when she does her stunt jump. Before the scene starts, Sharon walks over to Susan and tells her the wig she is wearing is better than Susan's own hair and makes fun of the size of Susan's breasts. After Susan's jump a group of the staff rate her jump, including David and Boomer claps for her. After the successful stunt, someone is seen dragging away Karsh's body. While shooting the scene where the dummy is electrocuted, the dummy is melted by the electrical current and the power goes out, locking everyone inside the prison. Rewire tells David, someone will have to go into the boiler room to reset the power. David and Susan go down towards the boiler room, and David accidentally falls into the sewer. Russell finds them and helps David out. He tells David, the hole he was in was called Moser's Hole and was made by Karsh to hold Ivan. Russell sees the body of Karsh float to the surface, but ignores it.

David and Susan have sex in the shower and afterwards, David asks Susan to marry him, but she resists. Tommy tells Robert, the talent agency won't send anymore actors until they are paid, but that he found a real prison guard to be in the film and motions to Russell. Officer Callahan walks into the prison and asks Russell if he has seen Karsh. As Mac is working on Sharon's hair, Tommy does a sound test with Foley. Russell takes Callahan through the prison to take him to Karsh, and while Susan is looking for Russelll she finds another doll, this time headless with a note saying they will be together soon. As Callahan is waiting for Russell, he is attacked by Ivan. Ivan takes a jackhammer and drills a hole through Callahan's body, killing him. When Sharon gives a bad performance while she is being "electrocuted", Robert has Rewire use real electricity. After the scene ends, Sharon angrily tells Robert that she quits. In her trailer, Sharon starts to drink after looking at her past achievements. She goes and sits on the electric chair and starts to complain about her career to her dummy. While at The Kitchen with the rest of the crew, Susan is mistaken for Sharon by Bea. When Woman in Diner hears that Susan was in The Thirty Foot Bride of Satan, she repeats the word Satan. Bea calls over to Fingers and tells David and Susan that Fingers was the executioner for Ivan's electrocution. While Sharon is wandering through the prison, she finds Ivan in Russell's office and runs away. She runs into Russell and he starts to grab her. She knocks him over a balcony and is then choked to death by Ivan with her Miss Dairyland sash.

As they are about to start the shower scene, Tommy tells Robert that no one can find Sharon. Robert tries to get Susan to stand in for Sharon, but she refuses, but agrees to go and get the dummy. The Sirens in the Shower enact the next scene to the enjoyment of the Film Crew and Ivan. As Susan grabs the wig, she doesn't see Sharon, dead, hanging from the dummy rack. She returns to the set to find no one there and finds a doll head spinning on the recording board. She then listens to the screams as the missing crew are killed. Susan runs away and asks Rewire over the walkie talkie where everyone is. Rewire gets the power back on, but is killed by Ivan who taunts Susan over the walkie talkie. David asks Fingers what the real cause of the riot was and Fingers tells him he caused a power outage by using too much power to electrocute Ivan and Ivan is half-alive. Susan goes into the main office and finds Tommy's decapitated head being xeroxed over and over. Fingers then tells David that Russell is Ivan's father. Susan finds Robert strapped to the electric chair, but can't save him before he is electrocuted to death. Ivan, disguised as a cop, walks into the room, and Susan slowly realizes who he is. David leaves The Kitchen and tries to catch a ride with The Cabbie to the prison, but The Cabbie initially refuses.

Susan manages to run away from Ivan, but is stuck inside the prison. David arrives at the prison, but can't open the front door. Ivan puts Susan in the electric chair and starts to cut her hair with scissors and eat it. She stabs him in the thigh with another pair of scissors and runs away. David uses explosives he finds to blow open the front gate. Ivan catches Susan and brings her back to the electric chair and handcuffs her to it. David sees Ivan and thinks he is a cop and Ivan attacks him and crushes his hand with a vice before knocking him unconscious. Susan manages to break free of the handcuffs and puts the dummy in her place in the electric chair, before electrifying the prison bars. When Ivan touches the bars, Susan turns on the electricity, causing him to collapse. She runs away and finds David and they get into Karsh's convertible. Ivan attacks them and throws David out of the car and Susan crashes it into barrels of gasoline. David tries to run over Ivan with Callahan's motorcycle, but fails. Susan runs away and finds the dead bodies of the film crew in Russell's office. Russell attacks her with a blowtorch and they fall into Moser's Hole and Susan kills Russell with a rock to the head. Ivan pulls her out of the hole and she sets him on fire with the blowtorch, killing him. She wakes up in the hospital next to David after waking up from a nightmare that Ivan is still alive. Shen then walks over and kisses an unconscious David's hand.