Murder Weapon

This movie is a bad movie. But after watching an endless series of bad horror movies, I can say that it is a little different from many I have seen. Not in the plot, which is a fairly regular slasher story, but more the way the scenes are cut. Murder Weapon gives us a lot of inane dialogue scenes, but they go on for a lot longer than in most movies of this type. Because of this some of the victims seem slightly less like cardboard cut-outs. Just slightly. I had a difficult time figuring out exactly what was happening at the beginning and kept wondering if certain events were dream sequences. My favorite scene is when two guys are on the run from the killer and take refuge in a car. In the glove compartment, they find a handgun. "Thank you, God!" one of them happily exclaims. That guy's head suddenly looks like a mannequin's head, and it went on for just enough time for me to wonder, "What is that? Where is that mannequin in relation to the two guys in the car?" Then BOOM! The head explodes and I figured out that it was supposed to be one of the guys in the car getting his head shot off with a shotgun. I love that scene, but the movie is a very bad movie. 3/10.

My review was written in January 1990 after watching the film on Cinema Home Video cassette.

From the makers of "Deadly Embrace" comes another minimalist video feature, aimed squarely at fans ol scream queen Linnea Quigley. Static, talky nature of this cheapie is a big drawback.

Incomprehensible plot line, which is unusually scatterbrained even for the video thriller genre, has Quigley and buxom Karen Russell as nutcases let loose from the asylum who invite some boys over for a party. Some maniac is killing off the boys and the bogus ending comes as no surprise.

Before then, the star (who also produced) removes her clothes for some sexy footage, while Russell is uncharacteristically prudish this time out.

Script crudely establishes that both heroines come from gangster families, but little is made of this irrelevant plot peg. Executive producer David DeCoteau, directing as "Ellen Cabot", fails to generate much humor or campiness here. Likewise, guest star Lyle Waggoner has little to do in his token role as a shrink.

Tech credits are threadbare, with a confusing editing structure and many scenes consisting of simply talking heads.

Two friends with mobsters for fathers get out of an asylum and plan a party for all their male admirers, but a psychotic black-gloved killer crashes the party and begins killing them one by bloody one.

Part slasher and part exploitation cheapie, Murder Weapon somehow has both way too much going on and not enough going on. It feels as if most of the script was written by throwing darts at a list of character types, themes, and genres and the overall mix can be a bit mystifying.

It's very hard to hear a lot of the dialogue and film equipment frequently make cameos, but Linnea Quigley is nothing if not dependable, lending a lot of tongue in cheek charm to her role. Some of the makeup effects during the death scenes are very impressive and some are painfully hokey, but that's all part of the fun. Have a few beers, sit back, and enjoy the movie.

I can't believe that Quigley would want to produce this awful gore-slasher film! Badly acted, badly plotted and bad special effects! I'm surprised that former "Carol Burnett Show" co-star Lyle Waggoner would participate in this film as a counsellor. And there's also Cheesy B-movie star Karen Russell who plays Quigley's sister. And there's an actor that I'm sure played the Santa Clause killer in "Silent Night, Deadly Night 2", with a different name. Well this movie didn't hit theatre's no doubt, and it was made when the slasher craze was going out of style, until Wes Craven brought it all back in 1996 with "Scream", now that's a movie that Quigley should've produced! She was better in movies like "Return of the Living Dead", "Night of the Demons", and "Sorrority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama!"

I imagine most people watched this for Linnea Quigley, I did. Whilst much of her work is in B movies this is bottom of the barrel stuff.

Her acting is ok and thats just about all of the positives folks. 1st gripe is that the Scenes are far too long, long scenes are fine if you have the right calibre of actors, this would have been better served with more action and shorter scenes. The sound editing is shockingly bad, the music soundtrack is so loud in places that you cannot hear the characters clearly (Although perhaps thats a blessing given the awful dialogue). The first 40 minutes is all over the place and actually kind of confusing with flashbacks sequences and badly written exposition. They did have something to work with when it came to the storyline, it wasn't bad, it was just so terribly executed that a promising idea came to nothing.

I am a fan of low budget trashy movies so I am quite forgiving but this one just didn't work at all. Sadly, not worth your time.