Jan 2020
...and better than is usually credited for.
Filmed in 1976, but not released until the post-Halloween slasher glut of the late '70s and early '80s, Savage Weekend, much like The Redeemer (1977), is a rude, crude, and wonky-as-hell early stalk n' slash prototype.
Our ragtag group of friends - adults, curiously, and not teens - spend a weekend in upstate New York to watch the construction of a boat, but also spare no expenses in a little r&r and the chance to bop each other's brains out (what's a weekend without gettin' your freak on, eh?!)
A few of the local hicks, played by William Sandersen and a pre-Re-Animator "Dr. Hill" David Gale, provide two of the strongest, scenery chewing performances, as well as your requisite red herrings that are so intrinsic to the slasher formula.
For much of Savage Weekend, the story that unfolds is more along the lines of a psychotronic soap opera, but one that is never not engrossing, and more than a little sordid, with past details of a woman's previous marriage-gone-awry, and the lust-filled thoughts she has for other men despite being newly married to a decent guy.
But as is the case for these films, someone does eventually crash their weekend, dons a scary mask, and begins systematically knocking them off one-by-one.
True, Savage Weekend is leisurely paced, talky, and when the action does get going, it's neither particularly gory or violent, but what it does offer is that sweet, sweet '70s atmosphere, interesting characters, a cool folksy music score as well as early analogue synth blurts, a great final half hour, and an air of general weirdness and freshness, no doubt benefitted by being an early film of this type, the makers not pressured into following some uniformly bland stereotype.
It's rough around the edges sure, and very low-budget, but the movies that stay with you usually are. It's classic '70s horror regional filmmaking at its near-best.
Filmed in 1976, but not released until the post-Halloween slasher glut of the late '70s and early '80s, Savage Weekend, much like The Redeemer (1977), is a rude, crude, and wonky-as-hell early stalk n' slash prototype.
Our ragtag group of friends - adults, curiously, and not teens - spend a weekend in upstate New York to watch the construction of a boat, but also spare no expenses in a little r&r and the chance to bop each other's brains out (what's a weekend without gettin' your freak on, eh?!)
A few of the local hicks, played by William Sandersen and a pre-Re-Animator "Dr. Hill" David Gale, provide two of the strongest, scenery chewing performances, as well as your requisite red herrings that are so intrinsic to the slasher formula.
For much of Savage Weekend, the story that unfolds is more along the lines of a psychotronic soap opera, but one that is never not engrossing, and more than a little sordid, with past details of a woman's previous marriage-gone-awry, and the lust-filled thoughts she has for other men despite being newly married to a decent guy.
But as is the case for these films, someone does eventually crash their weekend, dons a scary mask, and begins systematically knocking them off one-by-one.
True, Savage Weekend is leisurely paced, talky, and when the action does get going, it's neither particularly gory or violent, but what it does offer is that sweet, sweet '70s atmosphere, interesting characters, a cool folksy music score as well as early analogue synth blurts, a great final half hour, and an air of general weirdness and freshness, no doubt benefitted by being an early film of this type, the makers not pressured into following some uniformly bland stereotype.
It's rough around the edges sure, and very low-budget, but the movies that stay with you usually are. It's classic '70s horror regional filmmaking at its near-best.
