Edge of the Axe is Spanish horror maestro Jose Ramon (Vampyres) Larraz’s take on an American slasher movie. As is usually the case when foreigners try to make their film look as American as possible, Larraz falls just short of the mark. It looks okay on a surface level, but there is something that feels off about the whole thing, which kind of adds to the fun.
A small town is beset by an axe murderer who goes around hacking up young women. The suspects include a two-timing hot-tempered fumigator (Page Mosely), the town’s asshole sheriff (Fred Holliday), and the creepy church organist (Spanish horror legend Jack Taylor). Naturally, it’s up to the computer geek drifter hero (Barton Faulks) to put the pieces together and solve the murders.
The fact the film features a computer geek for a hero is notable. In 1989, computers in slashers were still something of a novelty. These scenes look so dated now that they give the movie an added cheese factor that most of its contemporaries lack. I particularly loved the silly scenes where Faulks keeps in touch with his girlfriend through a crude form of instant messenger. Every time they send a message to one another, it’s read aloud by a funny echo-y voice that I guess is supposed to be the computer “talking”. I wonder if this is where AOL got the inspiration for the “You’ve Got Mail” dude.
Larraz does a fine job on the stalking scenes. The opening sequence in a car wash is the most memorable. Unfortunately, the axe-wielding maniac, who sports a cool white mask and black poncho, hates animals just as much as the humans. There’s a grisly moment when the killer decapitates a pig and puts its head in someone’s bed. (Godfather, eat your heart out!) That scene delivers on shock value, but the part with the dead dog kind of crosses the line.
Overall, this is a solid, if unspectacular slasher. Those looking to get a quick dose of stalking and slashing (or… in this case… chopping), will probably get their money’s worth. Fans of Larraz will enjoy seeing his decidedly European style transposed into the very American milieu. It probably needed one or two more showstopping sequences (I dug the severed head gag) to really put it over the top, but Edge of the Axe is just sharp enough for me to give it a marginal recommendation.
I thought the Dead Dog scene was cool
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