Sledgehammer

This is a mediocre horror movie. It's very cheap, has acceptable (Sandy Brooke, Ted Prior, Linda McGill) to downright bad (George Eastman, Steven Wright, Tim Aguilar) acting, standard direction, poor screenplay, and okay photography.

It is about a woman and her lover who is killed by her young son(looks about seven years old, kinda young to be insane). Ten years later a group of vacationing teens (they look like their in their 30's, serious!) show up looking to have a weekend full of sex, booze, and fun. Their fun turns to sheer terror as their weekend is interrupted by the raving maniac's spirit.

It was directed by David Prior (KILLER WORKOUT, LOST PLATOON, MARDI GRAS FOR THE DEVIL) who does an okay job with the camera (for being a video movie) and creates a real film feel but when the action starts, he results to too many slo mo shots. Sandy Brooke is the most capable actress in this film, she gives real feeling to her character. Too bad she was in this movie.

It was shot on video before "BLOOD CULT" though and is wwwaaayyy better than W.A.V.E. Exploitation/Horror videos (At least SORORITY SLAUGHTER 1 & 2). Since IMD doesn't have a cast list I will supply one.

CAST

JONIE....LINDA MCGILL

CHUCK....TED PRIOR

JOHN.....JOHN EASTMAN

MARY.....JANINE SCHEER

JIMMY....TIM AGUILAR

CAROL....SANDY BROOKE

JOEY.....STEPHEN WRIGHT

LOVER....MICHAEL SHANAHAN

MOTHER...MARY MENDEZ

THE BOY (young)....JUSTIN GREER

THE BOY (older/spirit)....DOUG MATLEY

THE DRIVER....RAY LAWRENCE

All in all an entertaining if not throughly enjoyable genre piece stricken by poverty ($40,000 U.S. dollars).

5/10 (based on shot on video horror features)

Sledgehammer (1983)

1/2 (out of 4)

A young boy is being abused by his mother so he brutally kills her and her boyfriend with (you guessed it) a sledgehammer. Ten years later a group of adults show up at the same house and soon start to get picked off.

Director David A. Prior's SLEDGEHAMMER deserves some credit for being the first shot on video slasher film but sadly there really isn't too many good things to say about it. I guess you can give the film credit for being the first of something but sadly the entire film is just one giant mess of a picture with very little going for it. As you'd expect, there are countless technical issues, the performances are horrid and there's one thing that makes the film almost painfully unbearable to sit through.

What is that? The film clocks in at 84-minutes and the reason it runs that long is that so much of it was shot in slow motion. This here is what really kills anything decent in the film because scenes just drag on for no reason what-so-ever. I mean, I understand using slow motion at times but when there's this much of it you just want to claw your eyes out. Even worse is that a lot of scenes drag on for no reason at all. For an example, the opening shot of the house. In most movies it would last a second or two but here it must drag on for thirty seconds and for no reason!

As I said, that there makes SLEDGEHAMMER impossible to enjoy and it's rather painful to have to sit through. I will say that the death scenes were creative enough for such a low-budget movie and there was one creative shot through the killer's eyes. Sadly that's about all this film has going for it but you have to give credit to Prior for making his own film and this helped give a rather long career off the ground.

My review was written in January 1986 after watching a World Video Pictures video cassette.

"Sledge Hammer" is a substandard example of the new breed of horror features shot with videotape cameras (such as "Copperhead" and "Blood Cult") rather than on film. It's strictly a home video shelf item.

Made in 1984, feature included explicit gore and some nudity but a very weak storyline. Cornball premise has a battered young boy killing his mom and her adulterous lover with a sledge hammer. Ten years later, he's grown up and killing young people staying for a weekend at the same house.

With the killer appearing and disappearing at will, plus a seance at the house, there is a vague element of the supernatural in this picture, but nothing of interest happens between murders. Chatty dialog seems improvised and overall production qualities seem closer to the videotaped porn genre than to a horror pic. Acting is perfunctory and pacing is quite sluggish.

This is a homemade 80's slasher film that appears to have cost about 14 bucks to make and looks like it was shot on a VHS camcorder (I'm not kidding). It was shown at a theater in L.A. recently as part of a homemade horror video festival and I still can't get it out of my mind. The film begins with an abused child being locked in a closet while his mother has a drunken fling with a character referred to in the credits as the "Lover". Before the affair can commence a giant masked maniac armed with a sledgehammer beats them to a bloody pulp. A title card (old ass 80's camcorder text) tells us it's 10 years later and we are introduced to seven potential victims as they go for a weekend retreat in the home of the previous murders where they are systematically stalked and killed by the same sledge wielding madman. OK, I know it all sounds very derivative and there are much better, more professional cheap ass slashers out there, but this movie is "special" in a lot of ways. First off, the low production value and it's cheap, home video quality cinematography actually enhance the film a lot. That combined with a simple, yet effective, bass heavy synthesizer score, an amateur cast made up of muscle bound jocks and big hair bimbos, and a freakishly tall killer who wears a clear plastic mask and is genuinely creepy looking make this movie transcend into a weird kinda art piece. It's like if Pinter made a slasher movie at a friends house one weekend for beer money on his home video camera. There is also an unexplained paranormal bit where the killer can physically change back into the small child from the beginning so I assume the kid is the killer and he's a shape shifter. Huh!? This effect is handled with an old fashioned dissolve. There is a completely inappropriate food fight that is extended for so long it becomes almost disturbing on a sociological level. The killer is SO big he barely clears the hallway's ceiling as he chases a victim and he holds his sledgehammer in one hand the way most normal people hold a regular hammer. Freaky. This whole films visual style is unnerving and escalates it into something much more than what was probably intended. David Lynch meets The Slumber Party Massacre. If you can get a bootleg dub somewhere, get high and drunk with as many friends you can find and toss it on the old VCR. The 80's never seemed stranger.

I'm going to be honest, this might be one of the worst slashers i've ever seen, but at least it's entertaining. Let's list off the bad things about this film: The acting, the ridiculous plot, the dialogue, the special effects, the camera work. So what is there to like about this film? Well, it's probably pretty fun to make fun of with your friends. 80s slashers are known for being cheesy but this truly goes above and beyond. The parts that are supposed to be funny aren't funny, the serious parts are laughable, the acting is cringey, the special effects are truly horrendous, and the editing. THE EDITING. There are far too many slow motion parts that i'm assuming are supposed to be emotional but they aren't. And they go on. And on... and on.... the slow motion segues literally last for 1-2 minutes at a time, it is nind boggling. In summary I would recommend watching this movie only if you are drunk at a party and want something truly awful to laugh at.