In the sleepy town of Clover Falls, popular teens are butchered with regularity by a disfigured masked killer in the Freddy/Jason/Michael mode, named Roger Bladecut (Billy Burke). Their deaths are (somehow, invisibly) filmed and sold as horror movies at the local video store, run by Roger Bladecut. This maniac’s daughter, Abbie (Sari Arambulo), is for some reason keen to follow in her father’s footsteps, but when she starts hanging out with other teens realises that maybe murdering your fellow humans isn’t all its cracked up to be.
Even a cursory outline of the premise is probably enough to set alarm bells ringing for anyone with even a passing interest in plausible world-building. For those willing to suspend their disbelief, Bloody Axe Wound features some charismatic performances (from Sam Crane and Eddie Leavy in particular), a banging soundtrack crammed with riot grrrl riffs, and some nice juicy practical gore effects.
But that premise really doesn’t work. Abbie expresses her reluctance to slaughter her friends, and her dad tells her tough shit, the video store will be in danger of going out of business if she doesn’t commit; it’s neither so silly that you might just go with it, nor is it a clever exploration of dysfunctional family dynamics à la cannibal movie We Are What We Are.
The recent gore movie Terrifier 3 features similarly pointless world-building and lore in a film that didn’t need it, but that doesn’t suffer because it’s so effectively put together that you’re too busy cheering on the brutal kills and grand-guignol set pieces. Unfortunately, Bloody Axe Wound doesn’t have quite enough distraction technique, giving the audience far too much time to start wondering how on earth any of this is supposed to hang together. You’re left with the sense that these ingredients, mixed slightly differently, could have added up to something rather more delicious, but as it is, your attention is drawn repeatedly to the artificiality of it all in a way that does the film as a whole no favours.
• Bloody Axe Wound is on Shudder and AMC+ from 21 March.
