Customer Reviews

Axe

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The best part of the DVD of "Axe", is the trailer for the film under the alternate title of "The Virgin Slaughter". I will explain, "Axe" is the story of a trio of criminals who flee into the country to avoid the police. They come upon a lonely farmhouse inhabited by a pre-pubescent girl and her paralyzed father. In what amounts to a no-budget "Straw Dogs", the girl brings her own brand of justice to the criminals. The DVD provide three different trailers for the film with very unique appoaches, the best being the one for "The Virgin Slaughter", which depicts the film as some sort of demonic possesion blood lust film centering on the girl as a type of unholy avenger. It is the most misleading trailer I have ever seen and is well worth the price of the DVD. Something Weird Video has added numerous extras to this presentation. There is an additional film from the same director called "The Electric Chair" which is longer than the main feature. There is also two short subjects, one is very funny as a scantily clad woman, circa 1956 swallows swords which cause various layers of clothing to pop off. There is also director commentary and even radio spots. While this film will not appeal to everyone (anyone?), those who are into this sort of low-budget stuff will find the time spent worthwhile.

Another fine showing from SWV! The main feature, while typical of Friedel's style and, hence, not to all tastes is nevertheless a surprisingly well-made film. Despite Friedel's pacey style of storytelling, I must confess a deep fondness for some of his films. He has a real gift for weaving trashy archetypes together into unique little stories. Though far inferior in every way possible, "The Electric Chair" feature is a real hoot. Bad acting (see if you can spot future "LA Law" star Larry Drake in the courtroom gallery), bad direction, bad script and bad special effects make this a true Kamp Klassic. As is so often the case with SWV, however, the extras are the real reason to add this disc to your collection. The Encyclopedia Brittanica short about "Keeping Mentally Fit" is a howler and a half. It's narrated by a senile old sawbones who illustrates the habits of good mental hygiene with stories of past patients including a lazy school girl, a cry-baby and a self-loathing loser who does nothing but pout. Okay, so maybe I am missing the point, but who really cares. These priceless pieces of Americana are the main reason I invest my hard-earned money in these silly discs. This one does not disappoint!

If you were a regular at the drive-in in the mid 1960s and throughout the 1970s, you probably weren't a stranger to the films released by Harry Novak through his Box Office International film group, enjoying such wonderfully sleazy exploitation fare as Country Cuzzins (1970), The Pigkeeper's Daughter (1972), and Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman (1975), to name just a few. Another Box Office International release was this independent film, titled simply Axe (1977) aka Lisa, Lisa, produced by J.G. Patterson Jr. (The Gruesome Twosome), and written and directed by Frederick R. Friedel (Date with a Kidnapper), who also starred in the film, along with Leslie Lee, in her first and only onscreen role, Jack Canon (Maximum Overdrive, Weekend at Bernie's), Ray Green (The Natural History of Parking Lots), and Douglas Powers.

As the movie begins we see a trio of unfriendly looking men enter an apartment building and break into one of the units, apparently waiting for the occupant of said unit to arrive home. There's Billy (Friedel), the youngest of the three, sporting one of the more hideous perms I've seen in a long time, followed by Lomax (Green), a greasy, middle-aged, paunchy, ceegar chomping sociopath type, and finally Steele (Canon), a wiry man with a receding hairline, cruel eyes, who has a really annoying habit of continually picking at his nails, and who also seems to be in charge. Eventually two seriously effeminate fun boys show up, dressed in typically atrocious 1970s leisure wear, setting off a festival of pain as Steele an Lomax literally beat the hell out of one of the them. Why? Who knows? But I suspect it had something to do with the guy's ridiculously ugly print shirt...as for the other guy, cowering in the corner, well, let's just say he saved himself a beating by taking the express route out of the building. Anyway, the men take their psychotic show on the road, heading for the country, stopping along the way to terrorize a lone female clerk at a small grocery store apparently because of a lack of quality control regarding her fruit (it wasn't fresh enough for Steele). Given the hideous nature of the woman's floral print blouse, I'm beginning to suspect these guys are some sort of fashion terrorists, intent on sadistically humiliating and brutalizing those who would violate decorum and good taste with lousy wardrobes (hey, sounds like what that pasty skag Joan Rivers and her skagette daughter Melissa do whenever there's an award event). The terrible trio eventually ends up at a large, isolated house in the country, inhabited by a quiet, unassuming young woman named Lisa (Lee), and her paralyzed grandfather (Powers), who can't move or speak, and relies on his granddaughter, who feeds him a steady diet of raw eggs, to survive. After evaluating out the situation, Steele decides this is a good place to hole up, and the three men move in...later that night Lomax gets an itch and sneaks into Lisa's room for some mad, sweaty lovin' of the brute force kind, but instead gets a straight edge razor to the neck...ouch...Lisa then drags his corpse into the bathroom, dumps it into the bathtub, and proceeds hack the body up into bits in a sequence I like to call `I Dismember Lomax'...well, I wonder what she has in store for the other two...

Overall I thought this film a very stark and effective feature, and a great example of what can be done on an obviously minimal budget. The characters and the plot were kept simple, and the story wasted little of its meager 68 minute running time on unnecessary elements. One really interesting aspect of the film was how there was absolutely no back story towards any of the characters, especially in terms of the three men. We never truly learn who they are, or why they heaped the beating they did on the man at the beginning, whether it was under instructions from a superior, or just a vendetta against someone who did them wrong...and by the end, it didn't really matter. Instead, the story is essentially a snap shot of events that occur over a three day period, and we, the audience, happen to arrive on the scene just as things begin to get good. I though all the characters interesting and distinctive, given what little he had to go on, with Lisa being particularly so, a young female, alone, except for her mute, invalid grandfather whom she cared for, living a life of quiet desperation and despair, that is until the three men show up. At first she seemed willing to give it up, as if to say after all I've suffered these many years, this is my reward? To be used and abused by three men who just happened to pick my house as a place to hide out? What's the point? But then something snaps, and, in cool, almost calculating fashion, she starts to dispatch those deserving, given the right catalyst, that being a big, sweaty bohunk jumping her in the middle of the night. Most of the movie takes place in and about the lonesome farmhouse, and the director makes the most of the locations with some very decent shots, especially given his seemingly limited experience behind the camera. As far as the blood and gore, there is some of the first, but little of the latter, as any scenes with involving the axe are not actually shown, but shot in such a way as to leave it towards the viewer's imagination. I suspect this as done more out of budgetary constraints rather than artistic reason, but regardless, I didn't mind. There was one really unsettling scene for me, and that was near the end as Lisa is feeding her grandfather tomato soup. Given the events prior to the scene, one can't help but wonder if that's really tomato soup, or perhaps something else, something less appetizing...another element that worked really well for me was the simple musical score, with a tinge of the creepy.

Something Weird Video provides a nice looking fullscreen (1.33:1) transfer here, as the picture is clean, suffering minor flaws. The audio, presented in Dolby Digital audio, on the other hand, comes across a little soft and muddled at times, making it difficult to hear some of the dialog. I don't think this was an issue in the transfer, but something due more to how the material was originally recorded. In terms of extras, Something Weird really goes the distance providing a slew of goodies, including a 2nd, full length feature called The Electric Chair (1977), a bizarre little nugget written and directed by J.G. Patterson Jr., who produced this film. Also included are three, theatrical trailers for Axe under its various titles, along with ones for Behind Locked Doors (1968), Booby Trap (1970), The Child (1977), Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (1974), Kidnapped Coed (1976), The Mad Butcher (1971), The Toy Box (1971), and Toys are not for and Children (1972). On top of that we have two archival short features, the first titled Mental Health: Keeping Mentally Fit (12:14), the type of propaganda film shown in schools back in the day, and the second titled We Still Don't Believe It (3:40), featuring a female swallowing swords, to which each time she would stick a sword down her throat, an article of clothing would pop off (she stops once she gets to her undergarments), and finally a gallery of horror exploitation art with Horrorama radio spot rarities.

Cookieman108

Lisa, Lisa (Frederick R. Friedel, 1977)

The (still surprising, to me anyway) phenomenal success of such early- to mid-seventies rape-revenge flicks as I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left spawned a bevy of microbudget imitators that were perfect fodder for grindhouse drive-in cinemas. If you've read Austin Williams' phenomenal book Crimson Orgy, you've probably got a pretty good idea of what went on behind the scenes here, and some reminiscences posted on IMDB by one of the gaffers bear testament to Williams' loving research when writing that book. Lisa, Lisa (which has since been re-released as Axe, among other names) was shot in just over a week and a half, with most of the crew paid less than one hundred bucks for their work, very few retakes because the production was constantly running low on film stock, a director and a producer at odds with each other as to the final direction of the film, and even the "curse" that seems to surround pretty much every horror movie made in the sixties and seventies (and not a few in the eighties, as well). In any case, I digress, but I'm really getting to a point; if you loved Williams' book as much as I did, and maybe even if you didn't but still have a soft spot for badly-made grindhouse, you kind of have to love Lisa, Lisa at least a little. It's a terrible movie, don't get me wrong, but it's such a textbook example of low-budget sleaze that it might have been the movie that coined the stereotype. (It wasn't, it was released far too late for that, but it still feels like it.)

The razor-thin plot concerns three criminals (Weekend at Bernie's' Jack Canon, The Natural History of Parking Lots' Ray Green, and director Friedel) who are on the run and find a suitably run-down-looking house in which to hide. They soon find that the house is not abandoned, but is just sorely neglected. Its inhabitants are an invalid grandfather (Douglas Powers, who never acted in another film) and his nubile granddaughter/caretaker Lisa (Leslie Lee, who committed suicide not long after the film's release). As this is a rape-revenge flick, you can pretty much guess where the plot's going from here, though I thought it interesting that Friedel, who also wrote the script, made Lisa into a much subtler character than the heroines of the movies mentioned above; she's certainly not averse to taking an axe and giving her assaulter forty whacks, but her real strength is in playing the criminals off one another so that they end up doing a good deal of the dirty work themselves. You don't see that in this kind of movie too often.

Yes, it's bad. It's grindhouse, of course it's bad. The gaffer's reflections I mentioned above talk about how the initial cut of the film had a great deal more plot and character-building, and the producer of the film, who also did a good deal of the editing, left it all on the cutting room floor. (And we're back to Crimson Orgy again, and you understand that if you like this sort of film, I'm telling you you must read this book, yes?) As such, the end result has about as much plot and characterization as you average porn flick, but it still has a certain slightly diseased charm to it. Yes, it's possible to read the kinda-sorta-one-sided romance between Lisa and the criminal played by Friedel as living out one's fantasy (these days, we'd call Friedel the ultimate Mary Sue), and it's odd to use the word "innocent" in relation to anything relating to a picture like this, but it's got a charm all its own, as does Lee. She obviously took lessons from the Judith O'Dea School of Acting, but on Lee, it works.

So yes, I'm giving it a mediocre-at-best rating, but if you're willing to look beyond shoddy production values and a hack job during the editing, there's actually quite a bit to like about this movie. Worth hunting down. **

Leslie Lee plays the completely bonkers gal known as Lisa. She is very understated in what could easily have been a scenery-eating fiesta. Ms. Lee never did another movie. AXE concerns three criminals, two that are sadistic murderers and one that actually has a working conscience. After committing much mayhem, the trio decide to hide out in a rural area. They happen upon the isolated farmhouse of Lisa and her paralyzed grandpa. Now, like I said, Lisa isn't an over-the-top berserker. She is quiet, never raising her voice, and rarely uttering a word. All is well until one of the crooks attempts to rape her. That's when Lisa shows these bums some cold, hard steel! AXE is a nice freaker, and at 68 min., it doesn't wear out it's welcome. Also, the bonus feature THE ELECTRIC CHAIR is decent in a low-low budget sorta way. I found it goofy, yet irresistable! Enjoy...

Axe is one of those seriously low budget films that rarely hits home and is usually a bust. But surprisingly through the raw acting and limited budget, is a sleeper hit in the Gore genre. The limited characters are great because it is about a pre-pubescent girl who says very little and her grandfather who says nothing up against three gangsters on the run. The one weapon she is acclimated to as a farm girl who cooks fresh-kill is the Axe, hence the title. It has that Mod-squad production feel with the unexpected killings. There is the hint of possibly these killings not being the end, and this is really a serial killer in the making. Either way, the creepiness of her character, you still root for her and enjoy each killing. Many review point out cheesy acting, but I think it fits here, this is not a drama, but more of a cult classic slasher type flick, presented uniquely in that it takes place with a very minimal amount of characters and plays on the circumstances each character finds himself in and how to get out of it. I will say, those into plot will enjoy this film more than gore-seeking horror aficionados wanting more blood guts and violence.

I gotta say, I was really interested in this title by the trailer but I just didn't like it at all. Usually, b-movie messes such as this have a bizarre value to them that makes it all worth it. And I've forced myself through some pretty painful movies before but this is just droll garbage. Even with its short run time it feels laborious to get through. I've never felt like I had to work so hard to watch a short movie.

The DVD includes a second film with it that is also another mess but actually starts off more interesting than the main event itself. "The Electric Chair" begins with an interesting chain of events but quickly changes tone while carrying out in the same droll fashion of Axe; but unfortunately it's a crime/court drama so while it starts off better than Axe it quickly turns into the same type of garbage just without the gore.

Something Weird Video has done a nice presentation with the DVD; I will give it that. The only thing that annoyed me with the DVD itself was that they have the "SWV" watermark on the entire presentation of "The Electric Chair" for some reason.

But I'm over being mad at spending money on this. At least the cover art is kinda cool.

As horror exploitation movies go, this is one of the better ones. On a better budget, this movie could be pretty good. The revenge murder plot is a great concept. Overall this movie is pretty miserable. It starts out like a movie of the week drama with a picture of a quaint old house. Then we are introduced to some criminals that will be the villains of the picture. The movie then shows it pulls no punches when it comes to showing it's miserableness. We have a young woman who leads a miserable life taking care of her invalid grandfather who is capable of nothing but watching an old TV with a broken vertical hold. This gal's life really can't get any worse. Or can it? The criminals show up as they need a place to hide out and take them hostage in their own home. When one of her captors tries to rape her she executes her own brand of justice and cuts his neck. This kills him almost instantly. Time to clean up and move on to the others. Well, that is after chopping up the first corpse to hide the evidence. Now the axe she used is really a hatchet. It is so small it's pathetic. Couldn't they have found a real axe? Long story short, she kills the others to and goes right back to her everyday miserable life. One of the better grindhouse horror flicks. Could have been better if it had proper funding. Of course, maybe funding would have killed it as they would try to make it more commercial.

The only good thing here is Leslie Lee who plays Lisa. However, the entire flick is muddled by hack direction and actors who aren't very believable.
A waste of time and money. Certain viewers may get a kick out of some of the trailers, though.

Can't recommend this turkey. Sorry.