The Axe is Back!
A
group of sorority girls are having a slumber party at their house. One
of the new sorority girls is Leslie Borden, a descendant of the infamous
Lizzie Borden family.
They believe that they are holding a
harmless séance to conjure the ghost of Lizzie. But, they get locked in
the house with an evil, vengeful spirit as Lizzie Borden returns to
wreak havoc with her axe.
One by one, the girls are murdered as they try to figure out how to put an end to the return of Lizzie Borden.
Starring Jenny Allford, Mindy Robinson
Lizzie Andrew Borden (1860-1927) is a
grisly part of American history, but I knew very little about her except
for the children’s skipping-rope song:
Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one. Children are lovely, aren’t they? Such darlings. Anyway, I did a little research, and learned that in 1892, Lizzie and
her older sister Emma had a strained relationship with their father, who
was wealthy but tight-fisted with the money (he refused to pay for
indoor plumbing), religious and emotionally distant. In one incident,
when he believed that the pigeons Lizzie was keeping in their barn was
attracting intruders, he went in with a hatchet and killed them. You can
forget about that Father’s Day card, Andy. Lizzie’s stepmother Abby
appeared to have read the handbook on what stepmothers were supposed to
be like, as Lizzie allegedly always just called her ‘Mrs Borden’, and
the girls never ate meals with her or their father.
Lizzie Borden. Not the heavy metal band from my youth.
On the morning of August 4th, 1892,
Andrew and Abby were found dead. Andrew was slumped on a couch in the
downstairs sitting room, with 10 or 11 entry wounds; one of his eyeballs
had been split cleanly in two, suggesting he had been attacked while he
napped. Later, when the 32-year-old Lizzie (who had found his body) was
being tended by doctors and neighbours, the body of her stepmother Abby
was found in the upstairs guest bedroom, her skull crushed by 19 blows.
Police found a hatchet (not an axe) in the basement, free of blood but
missing most of its handle – had someone tried to get rid of it, unable
to remove the blood? With the children the prime suspects because of the
money issues, and Emma away that morning in a neighbouring town, Lizzie
was arrested and tried.
It was one of the first American crime
trial by media sensations, a century before OJ, with the whole country
talking about whether or not she did it. There was evidence leaning
towards it, such as the fact that though no bloody clothing was found,
Lizzie had burned a dress in a stove a few days after the murder, and
apparently she had sought to purchase prussic acid from a local
pharmacist on the day before the murders. On the other hand, she was
known throughout the community for her religious and charity work, an
angel compared to her father.
It took the jury only ninety minutes on June 20th to acquit her. No one
else was ever charged with the murders, though a number of other
possible suspects, including an apparent illegitimate son who couldn’t
extort money from Daddy; the older sister Emma, whose visit to the
neighbouring town was a convenient alibi for when she snuck back and did
the deed; Lizzie herself, having done it in a fugue state; and Old Man
Peters the custodian, who would have gotten away with it if it weren’t
for those meddling kids- no wait…
A seance! What can go wrong?
Anyway, Lizzie and Emma remained in town
for most of the rest of their lives, though the community more or less
shunned them, their notoriety surfacing every now and then with some new
sensationalist book. Long after her death, Lizzie remained part of pop
culture, lending her name to a feminist film director, a porn star and a
heavy metal band, but I can’t recall any movies being made about her.
So when I saw a DVD in the flea market with LIZZIE BORDEN’S REVENGE, I
was mildly intrigued. And it was only 50 pence, not even a dollar! How
could I pass it up?
Quite easily, as it turned, when I played it and saw that it was
distributed by Tom Cat Films. Son of a bitch! From the people who
brought us ALIENS VS AVATARS, which I recovered from enough to review
here.
Not having heard from them recently, I assumed that they had cut
themselves and died from some septic poisoning, but no. I could have
bought a Milky Way bar or a kick in the nuts from a hobo or something
equally more worthwhile than this. I’m an idiot.
Annoying bad actresses! What can go wrong?
Further mystery ensued when I looked up
the details on IMDb, and saw- what? The release date is listed as
February 4th, 2014? What the hell? Either there’s some ineptitude
involved here (What, ineptitude? From the people who brought us NIGHT
CLAWS and ISIS RISING: CURSE OF THE LADY MUMMY?) or my DVD was sent back
from the future to warn us about what was to come.
So, following the time travel trope, as it’s more fun, here’s my warning, in the form of a review:
The movie opens on a large house, with the caption “Fall River,
Massachusetts, August 4th, 1892” (I’ll take your word for it, though you
might have removed the plastic garbage cans sitting in the driveway
before filming. And disguised the driveway. And removed the park benches
in front of the house. Or maybe filmed somewhere more authentic? But
don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of other shit things to think about as
the movie progresses). We see Andrew Borden (Randy Oppenheimer, whose
name makes him sound like a redneck physicist) dismisses his daughter
Lizzie (Jenny Allford, DEMON HUNTER) and wife Abby (a cameo from Brinke
Stevens, a favourite of mine since SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE back in 1982)
and goes off to the bank.
A blonde bimbo about to undress! What can go wrong?
Lizzie departs to her room, strips down
to her old-fashioned underwear, picks up a long-handled axe, finds Abby
in a bedroom and attacks her, her axe never touching the body but
somehow producing splatters of cartoon blood. Yes, cartoon blood. It may
be CGI, but the quality is on the same level as some Looney Tunes
short. Andrew returns and gets killed in the same room rather than
downstairs, which if I’m feeling charitable could be chalked up to
artistic licence rather than writer Dennis Devine, who also directed
this, having read even less about the murders on Wikipedia than I had.
Lizzie departs, cleans up the blood on herself and dresses, suddenly
seemingly waking up from some sort of trance, going off and screaming as
she finds the bodies…
Oh, right – THIS can go wrong!
After the credits, we look in on the
modern day, to some sleazy photographer named Bobby (Michael Beardsley)
taking supposedly erotic photos of a young woman, Mallory (Shanalynne
Wesner) though they appear as erotic and professionally set up as a
Penthouse spread of Mother Teresa. She takes a call from her boyfriend
(for whom she’d been getting these pictures done), helpfully expositing
that she’s going to be locked into a sorority house that night as
punishment “just a bunch of hot chicks playing Truth or Dare”, but that
she’ll sneak him through the basement for a little bit of you-know-what.
Nearby, Bobby is listening, and you know they had him at “hot chicks”,
and later he helpfully exposits into a camcorder how he’s going to crash
the party (too many people are being helpful in this movie, and I just
want it to go away).
Give it all you got, baby…
The girls are a motley collection of all
the favoured tropes: blonde bimbo Ashley (Mindy Robinson, V/H/S 2), who
prances about in just her panties; straight-laced rule follower Janice
(Ginny You, ALIENS VS AVATARS), who will of course get wild when she
gets drunk; annoying know-it-all Cindy (Kelly Erin Decker); and ordinary
Leslie Borden (Veronica Ricci, 13/13/13), a descendant of Lizzie. Also
secretly present is Vanessa (Krystal Ellsworth, SNAKE CLUB), the younger
sister of one of the girls, who is apparently a bit of a headcase since
finding their parents murdered. And if you think there might be a
connection with Lizzie Borden, give yourself a No-Prize.
During the Truth or Dare, Cindy insists
on performing a séance to bring back Lizzie’s spirit and sort out the
mystery of whether or not she was the murderer; that they have a direct
descendant there should help. It apparently doesn’t, which doesn’t
surprise me, as the girls perform the séance with all the enthusiasm
they’ll show their wealthy husbands on their wedding nights. But of
course something does appear, possessing Leslie.
She just wants to be loved…
Look, do I really need to go into any
further detail? Let’s see: the girls helpfully exposit that the house
has unbreakable and unopenable windows (good health and safety there,
Unnamed University) and they’ve been locked in as punishment (and if
they need to get out, there’s an Emergency Axe. Really, there is, though
they at least play this for laughs.) There’s a girl-girl scene with
Leslie and Ashley that is as arousing as an episode of GILLIGAN’S ISLAND
(Yeah, you know Ginger and Mary Ann totally did it in their hut).
Everyone acts badly, and wanders around and gets chopped up, while the
survivors keep adding clues to drag the plot to the conclusion, though
even when all the girls discover that there’s a killer loose in the
house, it still takes another thirty minutes to get to the end. The
lighting, staging and camerawork are at times incredibly amateurish (at
one point, the killer, chopping up one of the girls in a room, helpfully
shifts to one side to let another girl flee).
Sorry to use you as modesty shields, Bela, but this is a family-friendly website…
Okay, is there anything in this movie’s
favour? Well, apart from the use of an axe rather than a hatchet, and
the location where Andrew gets killed, there’s a fair amount of
authentic detail to the real case. This includes the theory that Lizzie
may have been a lesbian (she allegedly had an affair with a famous stage
and silent film actress named Nance O’Neill), and that she may have
killed her father and stepmother to keep her orientation a secret.
There’s also a bit of knowing humour about the usual horror tropes about
how people always split up and invite getting killed, and some
time-filling asides that make some surprising little character moments
(and plot twists). And there is some practical blood and gore.
But really, it’s really, really, REALLY not worth the effort. Not even
for the nudity, unless you’re one of those people who hasn’t heard about
a little medium called the Internet where viewing nudity is pretty much
part of most operating systems.
Dated Released : 2014
Quality :
BRRip 720p
Info : imdb.com/title/tt2459038
Ratings:
2.1/10 from 174 users
Star : Jenny Allford, Michael Beardsley, Kelly Erin D
Genre : Horror |
+18
