Savage Weekend
- Css Darth-Sheol
- Apr 28, 2015
- 3 min read
One thing I've learned about watching collections of random low budget movies I've never heard of is that they can go either way. When I read the summary for Savage Weekend I held out hope that it would be somewhat suspenseful or at least campy fun, but odds were just as good it would be crap on a stick. Here, Mr. Movie Maker, you can have your stick back. I'm done with it.
The “plot” if it can so be called, revolves around a group of people that go off for a weekend of relaxation at Robert's vacation home. Along for the ride are his ummm... hang on. How to describe her? She's kind of his girlfriend I guess, and they screw like honeymooners, but she's not a very well committed girlfriend possibly because she's not quite over her recent divorce/separation (I don't remember the story ever specifically saying if she was actually divorced or not at this point). Her sister joins them along with one of Robert's ummmm... hang on again. I'm not really sure if this guy is Robert's buddy or just a professional acquaintance along to help build Robert's boat. The last group member is a gay guy whose connection to the others is never mentioned. Is he a friend? A relative? Your guess is as good as mine.
That is the movie's first huge pitfall: the characters and their relationships are never clear. We get barely enough info to have some inkling of the important romantic entanglements which does play into the plot in a significant way. Otherwise take a guess and hopefully you'll be close enough to be satisfied.
Oh! The plot! I nearly forgot about that. Some guy in a mask starts killing everyone. A logger and a really weird local (played by William Sanderson) are our prime suspects. The movie is 2/3 of the way over before we get to anything suspenseful except for the teaser at the very beginning which is so poorly done it would be funny if it weren't so pitiful an attempt.
The first hour of the “story” is an incoherent mess of scenes that make sad attempts to add depth to the characters and create suspicions about who the killer will be. Some of these attempts are obviously red herrings while others are more like plot holes. Part of the problem is not knowing who the characters are. Why is the girl sun bathing on a row boat while two guys fish? I didn't even realize until later that one of the guys was her boyfriend (or lover or whatever the heck he was to her). Oh, so THAT's why she was with them! I guess.
Then there's the gay guy. Despite being somewhat prissy an early scene goes to lengths to present him as a tough guy and quick-witted comedian. After that we see almost nothing of the guy other than him fixing up a meal until it's his time to face the killer (which follows some kind of weird sex romp with a woman that doesn't actually involve sex). So what was the point of his poorly executed bar fight scene?
What it all comes down to is that the scenes don't feel like they are telling a story. They feel like individual moments only loosely connected. They feel unimportant and even confusing.
MORALITY:
With this being a movie involving older characters rather than wild teens I didn't expect a lot of sex and nudity. Boy was I wrong. There are several nude scenes including some distant full-frontal male shots. Most of them involve sex while a couple are violent. One of the girls runs around in skimpy underwear for the last portion of the film.
The violence is rather mild for a slasher. Even when a guy gets stabbed through the ear it doesn't produce a lot of blood though it does look painful. The tablesaw death is implied rather than shown, and others are bloodless things like hanging. Still, despite the relative lack of blood this is all about finding different ways to kill people.
The strong language is surprisingly mild.
SPIRITUALITY:
Murder is bad. Everything else is OK.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
There is no reason at all to bother with this movie. It's not campy enough to be fun, the story is incoherent, and it takes too long to even attempt to build any suspense. The only half-decent thing is some of the actors like Sanderson, but nobody is good enough to save it.
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