‘Bloody Axe Wound’ Review: A Cute and Gory Coming-of-Age Slasher Comedy
Killing is her business, but business isn’t so good.
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What is Bloody Axe Wound About?
Bloody Axe Wound mashes up a teen slasher movie with a coming-of-age comedy to make something thoroughly unique.
In the suburban town of Clover Falls, real slashers exist, and their deadly exploits are put on VHS and sold to people as entertainment. For Roger Bladecut, being an undead killer is how he generates new movies to rent at his video store. Business at the store is down, and he needs to add something fresh to his next string of teenage slaughter if he hopes to keep people interested in yet another Bladecut sequel.
Roger’s daughter, Abbie Bladecut, feels that she’s ready to take over the family business. After some reluctance (and with no other options), Roger gives Abbie the go-ahead to complete the killings of the teens he’s preselected from the local high school. Abbie decides that the best way to stalk her victims is to go to school with them, but she gets too close too quickly, making it incredibly difficult for her when the time comes to finish the job.
Bloody Axe Wound was written and directed by Matthew John Lawrence. Sari Arambulo stars as Abbie, and her father Roger is played by Billy Burke. Molly Brown, Margot Anderson-Song, Angel Theory, and Taylor Seupel play Abbie’s intended victims, and Eddie Leavy is Abbie’s best friend Glenn. Jeffrey Dean Morgan also appears, making a brief cameo as a brutal killer named Butch Slater.
Bloody Axe Wound Review
If the above plot description sounds weird, that’s because it is. The biggest hurdle viewers will have to deal with begins with the basic premise of the film. The movie never makes any attempt to logically explain how the actions of the killers in the town end up filmed, edited, and packaged into a slasher movie. The scenario might sound like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006), but that’s not what Bloody Axe Wound is. There is no camera crew following Roger Bladecut when he kills. In fact, there are no cameras at all. He just goes about his deadly business, and then somehow, some way, his murders make their way onto a VHS tape. It’s inexplicable.
The premise of slashers living in a small town and renting tapes of their murders to the local citizens also brings up some bizarre questions. Do the residents of Clover Falls know they are watching movies that are essentially snuff films? Do they think it’s all fake? If so, wouldn’t some of the victims be recognized? There’s a scene where the parent of one of Abbie’s potential victims is watching a movie from a local slasher, so it’s not like the tapes are only rented out to specific patrons. Anyone can see them, and the murders have been going on in the town for many years.
For some viewers, these completely unaddressed questions might be a deal-breaker. But this is all set up at the beginning of the film, so at least you’ll know early if it’s too distracting for you to handle. If you can get past that though (which is easy to do), Bloody Axe Wound is thoroughly clever and utterly amusing.
As you might expect from a story that uses slasher films within its world-building, there is a decent amount of meta commentary on the slasher subgenre. A lot of that occurs between Roger and Abbie as they disagree over how Abbie is handling her duties as a neophyte masked killer. It’s not necessarily anything that hasn’t been covered by countless other movies, but it’s novel to hear slasher commentary within the context of it being delivered by a teenager who is struggling to reconcile family expectations with a growing loyalty to her new friends. It’s this novelty of the situation that makes Bloody Axe Wound so enjoyable.
As mentioned above, Bloody Axe Wound is both a coming-of-age movie and a slasher. The blending of the two genres works surprisingly well. For a large part of the middle section of the movie, the teen dramedy side of it takes over, with some slasher stuff sprinkled in for tension. Then, towards the end it turns into more of a slasher movie with the character moments from the earlier section giving the final scenes added emotional weight. It’s a clever structure that works well if you can accept the absurdity of the situation. Helping keep viewers engaged in the heart of the story is Abbie.
As a character, Abbie is great fun to watch. Sari Arambulo oozes charm as she plays Abbie as a naive young woman discovering the world beyond her father’s video store for the very first time. Everything is new to Abbie. School, friends, hanging out, love. All of it. And with all that newness comes plenty of adorably awkward moments as Abbie gets to know her friends/victims. It’s just as heartwarming watching Abbie smile as she gets her first kill as it is seeing her begin to fall for one of her friends.
Abbie also helps keep things even when the tone of the comedy in the film fluctuates. Certain characters are more realistically portrayed, while others are completely ridiculous. They’re all fun to watch, but the humor they bring can feel weird at times when it’s not clear just how seriously we’re supposed to think about what’s happening on screen. But Abbie is steadfast, and she grounds all the action in a way that makes sense from a character perspective even when the movie is nonsensical from a logical standpoint.
Bloody Axe Wound Rating and Recommendation
Star Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Bloody Axe Wound is recommended for the cross-section of viewers who enjoy teen comedies and teen slashers. If that’s your thing, then prepare to have your heart warmed, and to have your desire for over-the-top bloodshed satisfied.
Bloody Axe Wound is currently available on TVOD platforms including Prime Video.
Further Reading
- The Yorkie Werewolf Review: A Surprisingly Funny and Completely Ridiculous Horror Comedy
- In a Violent Nature Review: An Intensely Interesting and Mildly Inconsistent Slasher
- Prey for the Bride Review: A Fine Slasher that Begins Better Than It Ends
- Funny Slasher Movies
- High School Horror Movies
