BLOODY Axe Wound is a quirky and unconventional slasher comedy that has the right formula in place but really doesn’t know what to do with it.
Now streaming on Shudder, it tells the story of Abbie Bladecut (Sari Arumbulo), a teenager torn between the macabre traditions of her family’s gruesome trade, and the romantic stirrings of her first crush.
Think the lovechild of American Pie and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
This offbeat gore-fest is set in the small town of Clover Falls, a place much like Camp Crystal Lake, Elm Street, or Haddonfield, where horny teenagers are only ever one backseat escapade away from being bludgeoned to death.
Abbie is your typical rebellious teenager, but her father, is a different story. There’s nothing typical about Roger Bladecut (Billy Burke).
Not only does he run the town’s rundown video store but he also specialises in Michael Myers-esque escapades and captures his grisly killings on tape and sells them to eager customers. But after suffering a murder spree injury, Abbie is expected to take over from her legendary slasher killer dad, until he’s back on his feet and yielding his axe once more.
But as eager as Abbie is for the slicing and dicing of irksome high school teenagers, she loses her bloodlust when she develops tender feelings for one of her unsuspecting victims to be — Sam Crane (Molly Brown).
There’s the makings of a really sweet and compelling horror-comedy in all the above ingredients, but director Matthew John Lawrence gets the mix all wrong, and the pieces just don’t connect.
Bloody Axe Wound is a frustrating watch. There’s nothing here — absolutely nothing — that you haven’t seen a million times elsewhere. It’s formulaic and unsure of itself, every blood-soaked step of the way.
Blunt instruments are flying in every direction, but as a whole, it falls well short of the target.
(2/5)
