Courtesy of Arrow Films on Amazon Prime, I finally got a chance to check out Jose Ramon Larraz's EDGE OF THE AXE (1988, original title Al filo del hacha), a California-shot slasher made a long time after he'd been shooting classics like VAMPYRES. This small scale, low budget story involves a couple of buddies, one of whom is an early computer geek, whose town is assailed by a masked maniac who bumps off women with a hatchet. The sheriff seems half asleep so it's left to our hero's computer to connect the dots and try to work out the identity of the psycho.
Larraz considered this his worst movie and it's easy to see why; the whole thing is very poorly paced and far too padded out with completely dull character scenes of walking, talking and romancing. The English dubbing is noticeably bad here and the performances of the young stars quite weak; seasoned veterans like Patty Shephard and Jack Taylor bag only small supporting roles. There's some slipshod gore and a fairly decent reveal at the climax, but all feels very tired and lacklustre, going through the motions more than anything else.
Larraz considered this his worst movie and it's easy to see why; the whole thing is very poorly paced and far too padded out with completely dull character scenes of walking, talking and romancing. The English dubbing is noticeably bad here and the performances of the young stars quite weak; seasoned veterans like Patty Shephard and Jack Taylor bag only small supporting roles. There's some slipshod gore and a fairly decent reveal at the climax, but all feels very tired and lacklustre, going through the motions more than anything else.