Saw this on Amazon Prime, and took a chance since it was free, and the IMDB rating was 5.5 as of Memorial Day 2020. Boy did I get taken.
It should be noted, I am a horror fan and gorehound, so my hope was, at the very least, that this would be a terribly acted movie, but with some good gore. Often times the true indie productions - and by indie, I don't just mean NOT made by a major studio, but independent & made w/ a micro-budget - are the hidden gems of horror and gore. I've even learned to tolerate camcorder movies, as long as they have some redeeming qualities. If you look at my hundreds of reviews, it's rare that I give a 1, but Axe Grinder truly deserves the lowest rating available.
I also have no problem with recycled story lines and plots, as it is truly rare to find a film that is new and fresh. This "slasher" is formulaic: good lucking teens escape for a weekend of booze, camping, and sex in a forrest that is being stalked by an axe wielding maniac in a burlap mask. Sadly, the burlap mask did a better job acting than any of the characters.
No facet of the movie had any redeeming value:
- the acting is atrocious. Often indie films come with subpar acting, but not like this. The people in this film don't appear to have ever acted before. Not even the women's screams are convincing.
- the film was shot direct-to-video, and it doesn't even look like like it was done digitally. Like, literally...it looks like it was filmed on an old VHS camcorder. The scenes are shaky, at best, and the cropping is terrible.
- the special fx are non-existent. People get pounded with the axe, yet not a single blow is shown directly, nor does the axe leave any kind of cut or marring on the victims. Just poorly colored and oily looking blood. Practical fx can be done relatively cheaply, but the director didn't even try to make the wounds look real.
- the script...it's just hideous. The writer attempted to be clever by adding cliches and tropes throughout, but when actors can't deliver a line without sounding like they're reading from a page, it makes the dialog insufferable and trite.
- the editing is horrible as well, with cut after cut after cut being the balance of the film due to there being no budget to make the violence look real.
I suppose I could critique all the characteristics that make a movie (eg direction, lighting, sound, production, etc) but they're no better than what I've mentioned already. At the end of the day, the IMDB rating is obviously stacked by phony opinions. There isn't much in the way of reviews either. I wouldn't have even bothered leaving a review, but for the fact that there just isn't much feedback available on this film, anywhere.
Side note...one review mentions how gory this film is. I'm not sure who could ever consider this gory, where axe wounds leave no marks, wounds, or cuts...just fake blood, but suffice it to say that (IMO) it's not gory in the slightest. Well...unless you consider a guy holding a London Broil in his hand while trying to pass it off as some sort of human organ.
Even by "cheesy b-flick" standards, this is simply not good in any way shape or form. I hope the review offers enough insight to steer you clear.
