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Edge of the Axe (1988)




Tonight’s horror flick was the 1988 slasher Edge of the Axe, about an axe murderer who is hacking up the women of a small town. I had never heard of this flick, but it was mentioned on a YouTube video list of unknown slashers, so I found it on Tubi and streamed it.












The residents of the small mountain community of Paddock are going about their business. We’re introduced to friends Gerald and Richard. Gerald works with computers, while Richard is an exterminator, who also happens to be unhappily married to an older, wealthy woman. Richard deals with his matrimonial dissatisfaction by sleeping around with various younger women. Gerald befriends Lilian, the daughter of a local tavern owner, and they soon start a romance. One day, Gerald accompanies Richard on a job at a tavern to uncover a bad smell. They find the rotting corpse of a young barmaid who had disappeared some time ago. While her death is initially dismissed as a suicide by the local sheriff, not wanting bad publicity, and despite another woman having been murdered at a car wash, it soon becomes apparent that there’s a maniac on the loose when more bodies start piling up.











The murders are all well done, with suspenseful music, POV shots of the killer stalking victims, and lots of brutal, bloody slashings with an axe. The movie tries to paint everyone in the town as suspicious, to keep you guessing who the killer is. This results in certain characters acting highly bizarre and erratic. I guess it succeeds in hiding the identity of the perpetrator, which ends up being quite ridiculous and unrealistic. The twist reveal is less shocking and more laughable, since the culprit doesn’t match up at all with the footage of the killer. But like most retro slashers, we’re here for the bloodshed and not so much the plot, and in that department, Edge of the Axe delivers plenty of fun, bloody mayhem. It does a fine job of keeping the mystery and murders coming. Check it out if you consider yourself a slasher connoisseur.












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