OVERLAY REPORT

In the 1988 Dutch cult classic **Amsterdamned**, the audience’s emotional investment is clearly divided between a charismatic, relatable hero and a brutal, shadowy antagonist. ### **The Character the Audience Roots For: Detective Eric Visser** The audience roots for **Eric Visser** (played by Huub Stapel) because he is written as a "blue-collar hero"—a man who is competent at his job but grounded by the everyday struggles of life. * **Relatable Personal Life:** Unlike the cold, untouchable detectives often seen in 80s cinema, Visser is a single father raising a spunky, precocious 13-year-old daughter, Anneke. His domestic scenes—dealing with her jokes about his dating life or her "psychic" friend—humanize him and give the audience a personal reason to want him to survive. * **The "Everyman" Underdog:** Visser is often at odds with his superiors and the city’s bureaucracy, which is more concerned with Amsterdam’s tourist image than the safety of its citizens. This positions him as an underdog fighting against both a killer and an uncaring system. * **Heroic Competence (The Boat Chase):** The film’s centerpiece is a legendary 10-minute speedboat chase through the narrow canals. Visser’s determination during this sequence—performing his own stunts and refusing to give up even when outmatched—solidifies his status as a hero worth cheering for. * **Sense of Humor:** He maintains a dry, dark sense of humor even in the face of grizzly crimes. For instance, when two environmentalists are found missing "large chunks" of their bodies, he quippily remarks that they were the ones being "sampled." This charm makes him immensely likable compared to the grim nature of the investigation. --- ### **The Character the Audience Roots Against: The Amsterdam Maniac** The audience roots against the **Maniac** (the scuba-diving serial killer) primarily due to the sheer brutality and public nature of his crimes, though the film provides a tragic layer to his villainy in the finale. * **Brutal and Random Violence:** The killer targets innocent people indiscriminately—prostitutes, environmentalists, tourists, and even a Salvation Army worker. His first major kill involves stabbing a woman 16 times and then hanging her body from a bridge so it drags across the glass roof of a passing tour boat full of children. This specific action is designed to shock the audience and establish him as a monster who must be stopped. * **The "Shadowy" Threat:** For most of the film, the killer is a faceless "frogman." He uses the murky canals as a weapon, pulling victims underwater where they are helpless. This creates a sense of predatory unfairness that makes the audience crave his defeat. * **The Red Herring (Martin Ruysdael):** The film cleverly directs audience animosity toward **Martin Ruysdael**, a wealthy psychiatrist and former diver. Martin’s cold demeanor and suspicious behavior cause the audience to root against him as the perceived villain, only to realize later that he was protecting the real killer. ### **The Nuance: A Tragic Reveal** At the film's climax, it is revealed that the killer is a former diver who was horribly disfigured and driven insane by **uranium hexafluoride** after his boss lied to him about the safety of a diving job. While this provides a moment of pity—highlighting that the real "villain" might be the corporate negligence that created him—his decision to murder innocent civilians ensures that the audience remains firmly on Visser’s side until the killer's eventual suicide.