Savage Weekend

Savage Weekend is a very good film. Of course it does not have high production value, but as far as content and story-line are concerned it is awesome.

The film captivated me with its alluring plot and horror filled moments. Christopher Allport is wonderful in the role of 'Mother' Nicky, especially when he shows his true nature in the bar scene.

Unfortunately this film is very rare. I was lucky enough to find a copy at a local video store that was going out of business so I picked it up. If you ever find this film to buy or rent take advantage of it and you will not be sorry. It is a good film to watch with your friends, and like the last contributor mentioned, watching it with your girlfriend. She will be so scared that she won't want to let go of you.

I love this movie so much that my friends and I created our own sequel of sorts a few years ago via our camcorder. Granted we are not very good actors and we didn't take much time to plan anything, it is still fun to watch.

Long live Savage Weekend, it rocks!

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.

Five people take a trip to a backwoods community where one of them is restoring a large boat, the ownership of which is a matter of considerable anger on behalf of local yokel Otis (Sanderson) whose father, and the original owner of the boat, has recently died. Otis is "none too pleased" that city folk are taking away his blood, sweat and tears and he plans to get even. Meanwhile, promiscuous Shirley (O'Heaney) sunbathes naked, has random sexual encounters with Jay (Goldenberg) while the new boat owner (Doerr) and his girlfriend Marie (Hamilin, essentially the central character) are also indulging their carnal desires at every given opportunity. Flamboyant queen Chris Allport minces about, making salads and peeping lustfully as the two couples cavort, all the while Otis is plotting his revenge by his late-father's grave-stone.

It reminds me of a poor man's "Deliverance" in some respects and while at first glance, the cast may be unfamiliar, many of the faces are recognisable. Sanderson, Allport and Pomerantz have become better known actors, while Gale (pre "Re-Animator") appears in an early role as the sinister-looking Mac, all-purpose local man who could be a hero or a villain. Despite these names, it's Caitlin O'Heaney's presence that really emboldens this low-budget slasher flick. Light years before "Tales of the Gold Monkey", the brassy brunette is like a divine nymph and between Allport's colourful peacock like performance, the two make an odd yet engaging pair.

If you can overlook the moments of despair (Hamlin's cow-milking scene or the irritating banjo music spring to mind), there's enough material in this low-budget shocker to make it worthwhile. And while the climax descends into little more than a killing spree, it's energetic, gruesome and the plot twists satisfying. I watched this film many years ago and found it underwhelming, but on second more recent viewing, there's more depth in the cast and sub-text than perhaps initially meets the eye.

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...

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?