The Pick-Axe Murders Part III: The Final Chapter

The first 5 minutes offer potential .The rest is just awful Avoid

This movie reminds me of a Rob Zombie film, except with half of his budget and only a fraction of his imagination. Every single character is written exactly the same; each person, man or woman, is a *foul-mouthed *beer-swilling *drug-induced *sex-crazed *garbage human

That's pretty much the formula for Zombie films, and it's the same here. This one even has that same Zombie grit and filth to it on all the sets that Zombie and his fans seem to love. I'm actually surprised he didn't have anything to do with this.

Anyway, nothing new to see. On top of that, a less-than-captivating bad guy, less-than-inspiring heroes, subpar special effects, and tired story threads are a recipe for a stinker of a movie.

The traumatized survivor girl turns in a decent performance, I should say. Not enough to save the film, but enough for me to mention it.

As said, seen it before, done far better elsewhere. D grade.

First and foremost, of course this movie isn't good. I watched it because I was bored and hadn't seen Tiffany Shepis in anything in a while. Shepis was a B list scream queen in the 2000s appearing in low budget movies that were sometimes goofy (The Hazing), sometimes entertaining (Nightmare Man), and sometimes unwatchable (Nympha). Anyway, I've always liked her and her output has slowed in recent years.

She appears in this with A. Michael Baldwin, the other other guy from the Phantasm movies, as the sole survivors of a notorious rampage that ended with the killer being put down and them going their separate ways. He became a Sheriff, she became an obsessed alcoholic. Then some naked girl with no motivation resurrects the killer and he emerges, looking like a giant guy in a Halloween costume and nowhere near as cool as he does on the poster. Unsurprisingly.

Cut to a group of dumb, really dumb, people (I refuse to call them high schoolers) on their way to some screamo rock show. They holed up in a cabin and find themselves right in the path of the pickax wielding killer. And their only hope is Shepis and Baldwin, who are in the movie enough not to irritate their fans who only saw the thing because of them.

Positives for the movie are that it is relatively ambitious, with numerous locations and many different characters. So, it never gets boring. There is a fair amount of gore, some laughs that are so stupid you might smirk, really trashy women flashing skin left and right, and just general stupidity abound. In short, the movie's a hoot if you like low tier, cheesy horror.

The biggest downside is the image quality, which is relatively poor.

But I'd watch a sequel.

A cast full of well likeable characters, all definitely teenagers on their way to a concert of the absolute highest echelon of music, preformed by Sacrilegious Desecration get brutally murdered by sack wearing, pick axe wielding, chokeslam giving mountain of meat and hatred.

The banter between the gas station/café couple was hilarious and wish we got more of their gems i.e. "you smell like hamburger grease and racoon farts" and "get on ya goddam knees and suck my flesh flute" another classic ill be using from now on was "I'll hold my nose and pretend its ya sister".

The capabilities of the actress at 58mins 20seconds needs to be acknowledged.. Absolute scene stealer.

Kills were a little repetitive.. but overall enjoyable to watch.

Heading out for a concert together, a group of friends picks up a group of hitchhikers also looking to attend the same concert and head out to a local cabin in the woods to party in preparation for it, but when they realize that a local legend involving a deranged indestructible serial killer is true they try to get away from the madman.

This was quite an enjoyable slasher throwback effort. The big thing about this one that works is the wholly enjoyable backstory setup which gives this a strong entry-point. The opening monologue about the history of the killer affecting the town and his rampages in the past gives the film an impressive enough backstory about the killer stalking the residents, while the first sequence about the couple resurrecting the killer out in the woods is a spectacular surprise with a shocking reveal and tons of fun occult rituals to get everything in motion. Given that everything is shown to have affected everyone in the town and explains their behavior manages to come across quite nicely, this has a solid starting point to get into. The other big plus to be had here is the enjoyably cheesy style of slashing scenes throughout here. The idea of the film eschewing the traditional stalking in favor of quick ambushes out of nowhere to deliver a brutal and rapid-fire attacks which offer up plenty of brutal, gory kills is a fun factor running through here. The series of attacks are enhanced at the end where it focuses on the stellar rampage at the concert and the subsequent attack at the house where he takes out the cast in fun fashion, mixing those quick ambushes and some much bigger stalking that takes place in the woods, providing a lot of fun. These are what hold the film up over it's few drawbacks that show up. There are a few minor flaws to be had here. One of its biggest issues is the disproportionate pacing that still keeps this one going nicely enough yet does have quite a lot of down-time in between the kill scenes. It comes off way too late in the film for them to understand the killer's loose as the film does run through a few extraneous subplots and side-stories that really stand-out as padding. From the unrealistic and grating scenes about the various couples cheating on each other or the arrival at the cabin playing games with each other that just goes too long, these end up keeping the killer's antics until quite late in the film which is short enough as it is that holding off for that long isn't all that worthwhile. With the obvious low-budget feel that comes up prominently in here, these are what hold the film overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Language, Full Nudity, Graphic Violence, sex scenes and heavy drug use.