Savage Weekend

It's hard to call Savage Weekend a true slasher, because it was made before the big slasher glut of the early 80's, so it plays by its own bizarre rules and takes a left when you expect it to take a right. This can work at times, but its pacing is too snail-like and its characterizations are too one dimensional to stand out from the pack and make a name for itself.

There's a decently well developed and likable gay male character which is still rare these days, so Savage Weekend gets props for that, but things don't really heat up until the last 20 minutes and, by that point, the audience has been mostly bored to tears by almost inaudible dialogue about marriage, love, and sex. There's a germ of a great idea here. A mature, adult filled slasher film dealing with real adult problems sounds great on paper, but the writing never rises to the occasion.

There's an entertaining (and random) scene with a female character dressing up and doing a striptease for the gay male character that comes out of nowhere and is at least good for a few laughs and jolts us back to life in time for the finale.

Savage Weekend is quite an interesting movie. It's intriguing because, while it looks like many of the countless slice and dice flicks that made up the slasher cycle, it was in fact made some time before these films became popularised and clichéd. It displays some facets that would go on to constitute the classic style slasher film, yet it was made in 1976 and only released three years later in the wake of the huge success of Halloween (1978). It seems to clearly have been a movie somewhat ahead of its time in this respect. Its story is one that would go on to become fairly standard in this sub-genre. A group of rich urban friends travel to a remote location for some R&R, before long a masked psychopath begins picking them off.

Notably, the characters here are adults, in this respect it deviates from the later slasher template which focused almost exclusively on teenagers. One thing these adults do have in common with their teenage descendants, however, is that they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time having sex. In fact Savage Weekend is pretty ram packed with abundant nudity. On the other hand, it also spends an unusually long time on the plot set-up, with a reasonable amount of character development before the killer finally kicks into action. Maybe it spends a little too long on the build-up in fairness, as it does feel at times that the movie could do with a little more thrills and suspense but in the final half hour, the bloody action is certainly ramped up.

The cast was also quite notable for featuring a couple of actors who would go on to star in two 80's cult classics - William (Blade Runner) Sanderson and David (Re-Animator) Gale play a couple of the local hicks. The other most prominent presence in the film was unquestionably the boom mic, which popped up so often and in such hilariously prominent ways that I felt that it should really have been given a special mention in the end credits.

Low budget "slasher" film of a very odd, sometimes interesting nature about a group of people going to upstate New York for the weekend only to find death. It seems that the man who owns the property there is building/restoring a boat - which otherwise does not figure prominently into the story. While some of the scenes are very tense and horrific, the film also has oodles of gratuitous nudity, a homosexual man flaunting it and sticking sharp objects into himself for no apparent reasons, and some really strange locals that make upstate New York look like Hillbilly land. The cast is made up of unknowns, but most of them are adequate in their limited roles. There is a bizarre sexual current throughout the film. The first "real" death doesn't come for almost an hour, so this isn't that fast-paced in any way. Yet, despite its inadequacies, Savage Weekend is not your average, run-of-the-mill slasher film. There are, as previously mentioned, some very shockingly filmed scenes. The basement scene with the saw being one EXCEPT for the resolution of that scene. The film has a hanging, a duel with a machete and a chainsaw, an impaling, and one individual is needled in the most extreme manner. What was that whole scene with the hook about?

SAVAGE WEEKEND has some problems. However, it has some good points as well, including the character named Otis (William Sanderson). Sanderson plays him with just the right mixture of backward hick and unbalanced menace.

The nefarious Mac Macauley (David Gale) is also quite good in a wicked "macho man" sort of way. His dialogue on the fishing boat is priceless, especially during the branding iron flashback sequence.

As for the rest of the cast, they're very dull indeed, in spite of their disrobing every few minutes.

THE PROBLEMS: #1- It takes over half the movie's running time before anyone gets killed! #2- The acting can get pretty wooden -like a sentient forest- at times! #3- The boom mic is visible in several scenes, making them painful to watch!

Incredibly, even with all of its flaws, once the killer puts on the mask this becomes an effective horror movie. Made two years after TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and BLACK CHRISTMAS, and pre-dating HALLOWEEN by two years, WEEKEND gets points for originality, a nice twist, and a boffo finale!

Be sure to watch the uncut version only...

Writer / director David Paulsen ("Schizoid") got something of a head start on the slasher craze with this offering. It predates Carpenters' "Halloween" by two years; it was filmed in 1976, but not released until 1980. It's just weird enough - and kinky enough - to be watchable, although it may not appeal to some hardcore devotees of the genre as it takes a long time to begin its murder spree, and even at that point there's really no gore to speak of. Instead, what we get is a lot of odd touches and interesting character details, not to mention a fair bit of humour.

Marie (Marilyn Hamlin) goes on a weekend excursion to the country with her new husband Robert (Jim Doerr), her younger sister Shirley (Caitlin O'Heaney, "He Knows You're Alone"), and their openly gay friend Nicky (Christopher Allport, "Dead & Buried"). Soon, their good time is ruined by a psychopath wearing a goofy Halloween mask.

While there are no real A-list stars here, there are certainly some very recognizable faces. O'Heaney has some seriously sexy moments (viewers will definitely appreciate the doses of nudity in this film). Allport is amusing, even if his character is somewhat stereotypical. It's great fun to see David Gale of future "Re-Animator" fame as a lumber man providing wood for a boat that Robert is building with some associates. Top notch character actor William Sanderson is a vivid, unkempt redneck / red herring. A very young Yancy Butler makes her film debut. It's not surprising that Hamlin never got much acting work, because she's simply atrocious here.

There might not be enough here to completely satisfy some slasher fans, but it remains rather offbeat for its 88 minute time and it is worth a look.

Six out of 10.