Edge Of The Axe

Edge of the Axe (Al Filo del Hacha) (1988)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Jose Ramon Larrez

Starring: Barton Faulks, Christina Marie Lane, Page Moseley, Fred Holliday, Patty Shepherd

From: Calepas International/Jose Frade Proudiccoines Cinematograficas S.A.

The lead guy's girlfriend has a poster for The Color of Money in her bedroom; for some reason this made me chuckle-along with someone else having posters for both Max Headroom & Platoon-although it definitely was not the only time I guffawed. For example, one of the leads is named RICHARD SIMMONS-that is particularly great as Simmons was already famous by this point. I am certain this won't be the last flick I see in October connected to the Spanish film world-in the future I need to see more Jose Ramon Larrez films as I know he has some more highly regarded work from the 70's that won't be difficult to track down.

After a striking opening where a killer wearing an Eyes Without a Face-style mask kills a woman in a car wash with their titular axe (a unique setpiece) we see that our leads are a pair of young men who work as exterminators-one of them named Gerald is a computer nerd-and they romance women as that killer is roaming around offing various dames. This is despite Richard being married to an older woman... he proudly admits that marriage was for her money! This movie has some peculiar moments like that... a bawdy tune the leads made up about a girl, someone suggesting that a guy was gay-yeah, that didn't age so well-and of course the common trope appears of “the movie doesn't know how computers actually work.” As it's 1988, the phrase “bodacious tatas” is heard! For better and for worse, the European flavor of this is omnipresent despite many of the cast & crew's American origins.

It's yet another methodically-paced film for me this month—that was fine in this case as the general goofiness of the leads and the kills were at least brutal. During the film, there was a moment if I wondered whether or not the movie telegraphed something really important... it was instead a tease for one of several red herrings. Notwithstanding, there are some nits to be picked when it comes to Edge of the Axe-the acting, some of the plot machinations, the logic, etc. Nonetheless, I was still entertained; after all, most of this was shot in Northern California in a rural town so the woodsy milieu was quite charming to me. The music also was rad between the period country music and the period electronic score.

As long as you can tolerate both a dog death and a severed pig's head, the journey felt worth it after the concluding 10 minutes; it wasn't anticipated by me and I'll leave it at that. Director Larrez apparently thought this was his worst movie... in that case I'd be happy to watch the rest of his oeuvre as I thought this was fine overall.