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Sledgehammer
A young boy murders his mother and her lover with a hammer. Ten years later, a wave of teenage murders plagues the same area.
Release : | 1983 |
Rating : | 3.8 |
Studio : | |
Crew : | Production Design, Director of Photography, |
Cast : | Ted Prior Sandy Brooke |
Genre : | Horror Thriller |
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So much average
The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
This all sounds so comfortingly familiar. A young boy (Justin Greer) is locked in a closet so his mom (Mary Mendez) - obviously no candidate for mother of the year - can get it on, in peace, with her lover (Michael Shanahan). Very shortly afterwards, the mom and the lover get it with the title weapon. Fast forward ten years later, and one of the most obnoxious groups of young adults that you'll ever see makes it to the very same house for some hard partying. After we're made to watch a great deal of their tomfoolery, our psycho killer makes their appearance, once again putting a sledgehammer to good use.An early credit for "Deadly Prey" director David A. Prior, this stars Davids' hunky brother Ted in the role of Chuck, one of these merry morons. The acting from Ted and all others concerned is exactly as amateurish as one would expect it to be, but that doesn't mean it isn't entertaining. John Eastman hams it up the most. Overall, "Sledgehammer" is nothing special, and it may not appeal to slasher fanatics across the board because one, there's no nudity, and two, it's really not that gory until the big finish. All of that said, it's reasonably enjoyable in typical bad movie fashion.The main problem is that David A. Prior goes out of his way to pad the running time. "Sledgehammer" only runs about 85 minutes, but several minutes easily could have been cut out without affecting the movie. Still, this may add to the appeal for some in the audience. The inane antics of our intended victims go on for quite a long time, so if one is not amused by these characters right off the bat, just imagine having to put up with them for over 40 minutes or so.The gore might not be that much, but it's fun in a predictably tacky way."Blood Cult" may get erroneously credited as the first shot on video regional horror flick, but this one predates it by a few years.Six out of 10.
"Sledgehammer" is more than just a lousy and nearly insufferable early 80's slasher flick! This milestone in its own league marked the debut feature of none other than David A. Prior! Who? The name might not ring a bell to cinematic value seekers, but since more than three decades straight now, Mr. Prior is one of the most over-active and prolific trash directors in the business. Nearly forty bad films in thirty years, that's what I call perseverance and dedication! And David doesn't operate all by himself, in fact, since practically his entire repertoire stars his hunky beefcake brother Ted. The two heroic brothers started out with horror flicks ("Sledgehammer" and the equally horrendous "Killer Workout"), but then quickly turned to jungle adventures and Vietnam action vehicles probably because they realized Ted's posture is more fit for that type of movies. Their absolute highlight inarguably remains the phenomenal 1987 "Deadly Prey", which is – I believe – a movie that everybody in the whole world needs to watch.But back to David & Ted's first venture into the movie industry, entitled "Sledgehammer", which is a lousy and nearly insufferable early 80's slasher flick! This shot-on-video project simply oozes amateurishness, ineptitude and total helplessness. We're talking horribly weak camera-work, a complete lack of editing, pathetic stereotype characters, limited set-pieces, atrocious acting performances, zero attempt to build up tension and/or atmosphere, insufficient plot material to fill a long feature film (resulting in a dreadful amount of irritating padding footage) and laughable gore effects accomplished with kitchen equipment! A bunch of idiots invade a countryside mansion for a weekend of booze and childish fun, but during the opening sequences we witnessed already how a woman and her lover were "brutally slain" with a sledgehammer in the same house one decade earlier. The woman's 8-year-old son vanished after the murders, but local legend states that he's still dwelling around in the area. Following the worst amateur-séance in history, the group members are butchered one after the other by a guy with a sledgehammer! Now, who might he be? Although I probably shouldn't waste any further words to this awful stinker, I would still like to highlight two elements in "Sledgehammer": the characters and the padding footage. Ted Prior is quite embarrassing as the "leader" exposing his muscled torso the entire time, but strangely enough he still is the most authentic masculine character. There's a dude called John, who looks like a wardrobe closet and doesn't have more than 2 brain cells (1 for beer, 1 for food). Whenever he kisses his girlfriend, he practically eats her entire face! Another guy, named Jimmy, clearly struggles with his sexuality. Also, his mullet and porno-mustache are hilarious. The script is extremely anti-feminist, since the three girls in the cast hardly say or do anything of significance. 85% of the film's content is pure filler, without exaggerating. Exterior shots of the house last for approximately 30 seconds, unloading the van upon arrival at the house takes up about five minutes and there's a truckload of sequences illustrating empty stairs and empty rooms. There's a pointless "we are walking in the garden together" collage (in slow-motion!) and the absolute masterwork of stretching time is a pitiable food-fight sequence. Heck, even the sole sex sequence in "Sledgehammer" is dull and overlong!
We all know the drill: A young boy murders his abusive mother and her smarmy lover with a sledgehammer just as they are ready to get down to business. Ten years later a gaggle of obnoxious teenagers crash at the house where the killings occurred and not surprisingly the graphic carnage begins anew. Man, does this gloriously ghastly shot-on-video micro-budget train wreck possess all the right wrong stuff to qualify as a real four star stinkeroonie: hopelessly all-thumbs (mis)direction, a droning and redundant hum'n'shiver synthesizer score, hilariously horrible acting from a lame no-name cast, ugly fuzzed cinematography complete with primitive fade outs, tacky freeze frames, and clumsy excessive overuse of strenuous slow motion, cheesy excessive gore, a meandering narrative that plods along at a gruelingly sluggish pace, the tried'n'true have sex and die cliché, zero tension or spooky atmosphere, annoying one-note characters, loads of needless filler (the ridiculous messy food fight set piece is especially extraneous), rusty tin-eared dialogue, dumb false scares, a downright surreal last third, and the inevitable "it ain't over yet!" sequel set-up non-ending. An uproariously atrocious howler
"Sledgehammer" is a SOV slasher flick which tells the story about the slowest serial killer in the history of hack'em up genre.The killer uses sledgehammer to murder his victims.He is plagued by traumatic past because he was locked away by his mother during his obviously unhappy childhood."Sledgehammer" oozes machismo.It stars Ted Prior of "Deadly Prey" fame as one of the main characters and is filled with a lot of annoying slow-motion scenes.The pace of "Sledgehammer" is decent and there is some cheap gore.The location sets are laughable:the action takes place inside this barren house.Upretentious in its cheese "Sledgehammer" by David A.Prior is worth checking out for slasher completists.6 sledgehammers out of 10.