Deron Generally
Deron Generally
Bloody Axe Wound
RLJE Films and Shudder
Written by Matthew John Lawrence
Directed Matthew John Lawrence
Starring Molly Brown, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Billy Burke, Sari Arambulo, Eddie Leavy, Sage Spielman, Margot Anderson-Song, Matt Hopkins, David Littleton, Keaton Morris-Stan, Jahdey Wright and Rena Burkhart
Rated R
Abbie Bladecut’s family business, a video store, has thrived by disposing of teenagers to mimic horror movies. As the first female slasher, she battles gender bias while realizing the harsh realities behind the mass murders.
Bloody Axe Wound is an outlier in the world of slasher films and that is a very good thing. Writer/Director Matthew John Lawrence takes the conventions of a slasher film and a teen comedy and blends them together into something interesting.
The first thing I enjoy about Matthew John Lawrence’s writing and direction for this film is the matter of fact aspect of the world it exists in. Slasher murderers are a thing in this society and their exploits are underground entertainment for many people. The populace is concerned, but there are no obvious signs of this phenomenon being more than normal and the desensitization of that same populace is intriguing and almost as scary as the acts themselves. It’s a weird world to grow up in and you get a sense of that weirdness in a character like Abbie.
Sari Arambulo is great as Abbie Bladecut, the daughter of serial killer Roger Bladecut (Billy Burke). She has grown up with murder as a part of her life and desperately wants to take over the family business. Unfortunately, her first forays into killing her fellow teenagers are overly messy and she doesn’t really have the heart for it like her ailing father. Arambulo gives a great performance as a kid who wants to impress her father by showing she’s capable and her journey takes some interesting and comedic turns as it brings the home schooled kid into high school where she begins to find a group of peers to become a part of. Peers that are also on her father’s list of potential victims.
Abbie’s school journey will bring her face to face with Sam (Molly Brown), a failed victim of Abbie’s attempt to impress her father. Sam is relatively popular and Abbie begins to see that Sam is also a complex person and not the cliche her father paints her and the other kids as. Abbie’s conflict with trying to do what her father wants and her growing feelings for Sam create some great moments of tension and heart throughout the film. I also like that the other kids are complex as well and don’t fall into typical slasher victim stereotypes once you get a peek behind the curtain of their lives.
Bloody Axe Wound does deliver on the blood and gore as well which is what I was hoping for. There are some brutal, violent scenes throughout the movie. Scenes that are wonderfully shot and I believe have subtle homages to other slasher films from Halloween to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The brutality of those scenes are given weight by Abbie’s stumbling attempts to be a killer which lead to some of the more comedic moments in the film.
The film isn’t perfect though. There are some pacing issues in the second act that drain a lot of the rising tension the film is generating. Something that forces the third act to come too quickly. Overall, the story is a fun ride with great, compelling characters and a wonderfully endearing love story at the heart of it. A love story that leads to a cliffhanger at the end that I wasn’t expecting and was pleasantly surprised by. Slasher films are not everyone’s cup of tea and neither are teen comedies, but this movie is a fun and entertaining mixture of both.
Bloody Axe Wound
