Edge of the Axe (1989)

Trailer: 

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Home gardening tool sharpening how-to video.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• The first scene is set in a car wash. I went to a haunted car wash once, where scary clowns popped out and beat on your windows. Good clean fun!
• How would no one see this axe murderer in the car wash during the daytime.
• This killer mask is basically the Michael Myers mask without hair. Or a mouth. But he must scream.
  
• 45-minute scene of this goober opening a computer box.
• Best animal head in a bed scene since The Godfather, when they found Clemenza’s severed head in a bed.
• Gerald the computer geek has an exterminator buddy named Richard Simmons, which is legitimately the character’s name, even though Richard Simmons was a known celebrity at the time, so that’s a weird choice. Anyway, he hates his elderly wife and he wears nothing but hot pants.
• Why are Richard Slimmons and this old woman married anyway? There’s no explanation given and they both just screw around on each other.
  
• So far there’s 90% more computer talk than killing.
• Gerald is talking about the computers being hooked up to a central terminal. Did he just invent the internet?
• Gerald’s girl Lillian asked the computer if he was gay. What else would you even use computers for back then?
• Here’s a hobo drinking out of a bottle of Jim Beam. Please god let him see something strange, rub his eyes, stare at the bottle, shake his head, and throw it over his shoulder.
• This foreign hooker runs afoul of the killer, and we basically see his whole face, which is weird. Then he puts the mask on. Why not put the mask on first? And why the mask, anyway?
  
• I can’t believe ol’ Dick Simmons is cheating on his ancient wife with this young chippy who flat out refuses to wear a bra. He must really love the ladies, just like the famous Richard Simmons.
  

• It was just pointed out exactly how many doors this house/fishing store building has, which will in no way come into play later when they’re running from the killer.
• There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to these killings except they’re all women. And maybe braless.
• When a girl tells you she stopped taking all her medication, run as far away as you can.
• In between the axe murders this movie has the weirdest tone. It’s like a small town slice of life. With computers. There’s very little to make fun of here.
• This church choir is the absolute spraying shits. They should be ashamed of themselves. Maybe it’s a Satanist choir and they sound like hell on purpose.
• Killing women, fine. But what did this adorable Jack Russell do? And why would this small dog bleed so much it drips through the floor into the room below?
• You know, I would say why are Gerald and Lillian using the computer text to talk to each other instead of calling on the phone, but I live in 2023 and only occasionally answer the phone when it’s my mom or the police.

• Six years ago Lillian pushed her cousin Charlie in a swing so hard he fell off and fractured his skull. Using the internet, she finds he’s just been released from a crazy camp. Sounds like a red herring, why would he be killing these women and animals, and the hooker wouldn’t recognize him.
• Anyway, this chick has more baggage than the carousels at the Denver airport.
• Ok, Lillian just explained that all the women that have been killed worked in her cousin Charlie’s psychiatric ward. Even the hooker? If it’s gonna be that kind of psyche ward then I’m nuts!
• Richard Simmons’ old wife is now bankrupt for some reason. Is this going somewhere? Why are we watching this? We haven’t even seen Richard in like 30 minutes.
• Mrs. Simmons and some geezer are driving home from the bar and she hits the brakes a bit because there’s a log in the road. This gives her a nasty bump on the head and kills the guy. Because she applied the brakes at 35 miles per hour.

• Wow, Gerald’s a shitty friend. If Brad asked me for help because his wife was missing I probably wouldn’t turn him down because I had a date that night. Probably. Who’s the date?
• Ok so I guess we’re at the end now as we’re at the House of a Thousand Doors and Lillian is alone.
• The axe Lillian grabbed to defend herself looks like it has erectile dysfunction.
• So Gerald shows up with black gloves on for no reason and confronts Lillian that the WOPR computer revealed that she’s crazier than a shithouse rat and she made up Charlie and killed all those women because they were tied to her stay in crazy camp somehow. It’s legitimately hard to follow.
• The computer also states that Lillian is an Acute Psychopath.
• So then she runs and Gerald chases her out the door and the waiting cops shoot him in the gut for his concerns.
• Lillian hugs the sheriff and gives a radiant crazy smile over his shoulder. She really is a cute psychopath!

Final Thoughts: This is legitimately one of the weirdest horror movies I’ve ever seen. Not because it’s weird, because it’s not weird. I don’t even know how to properly explain it. If you took out the killings, it would mostly be a movie about life’s struggles in a small Pacific Northwest town. But still, it’s not bad, and it’s actually really well directed, all things considered.

Score: 5.5 Dawnings of the Internet (out of 10)