BLOODY AXE WOUND
Starring: Sari Arambulo, Molly Brown Billy Burke, Sage Spielman, Matt Hopkins, Angel Theory, Eddie Leavy, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Director: Matthew John Lawrence
KATIE
Bloody Axe Wound presents a unique approach to the slasher genre combined with an unconventional coming-of-age narrative, resulting in an entertaining but uneven film. The teenage romance is sweet, but I struggled to reconcile the coming-of-age themes with the horror-comedy, especially since it's much funnier when it leans into the absurdity and hilariously gratuitous gore. Eddie Leavy is hysterical as Glenn, stealing every scene, but the comedy is sometimes impeded by the varying tone. Although it didn’t quite hit the mark for me, Bloody Axe Wound offers a fun, fresh, and gloriously bloody experience for genre fans.
NICK
Bloody Axe Wound doesn’t get off to a very good start, but as the film progressed, its B-movie charms started to win me over a little. The mix of electric rock music and gnarly kills satisfies the throwback horror vibes, but it’s telling a more grounded story of parental pressures through that lens that adequately layers it. Sari Arambulo (Abbie Bladecut) is a serviceable lead who is able to balance the campiness and terror the film requires, but the rest of the cast is fairly replaceable due to poor character development. For a film built around a father/daughter dynamic, I needed more scenes exploring that.
