Edge of the Axe (1988)

Original title: Al filo del hacha

An axe murderer with a nice blank mask is making his way from an introductory murder in a car wash to a small town with the adorable name of Paddock that seems situated in Northern California, the Deep South and New York State at the same time. It’s probably part of the great state of Spain, USA.

Anyway, while the killer is murdering an ever increasing number of women, the local Sheriff publicly declares most of these axe murders to be suicide or accidents, while everybody else calls them axe murders, and the Sheriff himself also investigates them as such, badly. We can’t blame the man for failing, though, for there are a lot of suspicious people around this particular small town, and even more that get a “isn’t that guy suspicious?” kind of close-up from director José Ramón Larraz.

We don’t spend a lot of time with the sheriff, fortunately, but pop in with various characters around town on their daily business, mostly consisting of getting murdered or finding corpses. Among the town’s population are characters played by Jack Taylor and Patty Shepard, so you know we are in good, Spanish genre cinema hands there.

The closest we have to protagonists are new in town 80s computer geek Gerald (Barton Faulks) and his fresh charmed-by-absurd-computer-talk local girlfriend Lillian (Christina Marie Lane). Unlike actual protagonists, they are only kinda-sorta involved in amateur investigating the murders. Mostly, they are around to show off the various suspects, until the film eventually gets up to other business with them when things come to the climax.

Apparently, this is the least-favoured film of its director, the great cult filmmaker José Ramón Larraz, and I can see why. However, it’s also a greatly entertaining film if you’ve got the appropriate sensibilities, and don’t have to defend your own dignity like he did.

At the very least, this is a very interesting film in that it is one of those late period giallos (let’s just call Spanish thrillers in the Italian vein that, too) taking elements from the US slasher genre which took rather a lot from the giallo in the beginning, mixing both genres in strange and not necessarily effective ways. The film’s interest in whodunnit and the actual resolution of the killer’s identity is pure giallo, of course, but the staging of kills, as well as the US small town setting are really coming from the slasher side of things. It doesn’t quite work to make for a good mixture – the investigation is just not terribly interesting or excitingly done, or even an investigation, most importantly – but it is definitely an interesting one. The curious nexus of influences sometimes makes the film feel like an attempt by a non-American to make a US regional movie.

Even though the investigation parts are not all that exciting, Larraz actually manages to milk the Spain-Americana vibe to entertaining effect, doing to the rural US what the German Krimi did to London, turning it into a place of clichés and concepts taken from books and movies and no actual human experience. It’s like a slightly peculiar dream of America (sorry, Greil Marcus), and therefore a place that’s fun to visit for the length of a movie or two.

Plus, while this certainly isn’t the most stylish of its directors’ films, at least the murders are shot quite wonderfully, with some really enthusiastic axing by the actor playing the killer, moody light, and occasional pigs. The rest of the film looks pretty great, too, actually, Larraz making things at the very least attractive, and usually not boring to look at.

Other joys include the utterly ridiculous ways the film talks and thinks about computers, the pleasantly bizarre ultra-giallo revelation of the killer (here coming complete with a childhood trauma that’s only in their mind) leading into a downer ending that’s neither giallo nor slasher but the sound of scriptwriters giggling madly made picture, as well as the general air of watching interactions taking place in a somewhat peculiar neighbouring universe version of the USA. It’s pretty great.