Axe

AXE (aka: LISA, LISA) is the story of three desperate criminals, two of whom are sadistic murderers, and one with a working conscience. After committing mayhem, the trio decide to hide out at an isolated farmhouse inhabited by a young woman named Lisa (Leslie Lee) and her paralyzed grandfather. Unbeknownst to these crooks, Lisa is a tad unbalanced. All goes well until one of the miscreants tries to rape her, causing Lisa to show these bums some cold, hard steel!

Ms. Lee could have played Lisa to the hilt, but downplays her madness instead. She's quiet, rarely uttering a word. This actually makes her creepier! A decent low-budget feature worth checking out...

Axe is yet another very low budget exploitation flick that would be very obscure today was it not for the fact that it gained lasting notoriety as one of the infamous video nasties. These were of course films deemed criminally obscene by the British authorities back in the early 80's as a consequence of the unregulated home video boom. Furthermore, Axe was one of the 39 titles that remained on the list to the very end and so is regarded by purists as one of the 'true' video nasties. Having just seen it, it doesn't really warrant such a label as, while it has its moments, it's hardly all that shocking even compared with many other similar films from the time. It does appear to have taken a lot of influence from another more notorious video nasty, namely Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972). The story-line has some pretty obvious similarities. Three criminals go on the run after killing two men and wind up at a remote house where an unstable young woman called Lisa lives with her paralyzed grandfather. They subsequently terrorise these people but the gangsters are in for a shock when Lisa enacts vicious revenge on them.

I got the feeling when watching this one that its fashions implied that it might have been made in the early 70's as opposed to the specified release year of 1977. If this is so, it hardly seems so unlikely as this is an ultra-low budget affair with quite a number of deficiencies about it due to the inexperience of the film-makers and the obvious limitations of the production. It's exactly the kind of movie that could conceivably have sat on a shelf for a while before a distributer picked it up. Whatever the case, it seems to have been released as a film that would make up only part of the bill at the American drive-in circuit. It only clocks in at just over an hour and even the credit sequence is very elongated to extend the run-time (so protracted that I even picked up on the very minor trivia fact that the make-up artist was Worth Keeter the future director of the Pamlea Anderson soft-core classic Snapdragon (1993)). Despite the minimal run-time there is a pretty obvious lack of material and the film has many scenes that seem to just be padding. Little is explained in the film in terms of character motivations or background, things just happen. Aside from the lacking story, it's not in all honesty a very well-directed or edited film either.

Yet despite all this, it does have something. The very low-key and minimalist approach does achieve a certain strange atmosphere and it's also shot reasonably well. The lack of any background or explanations does also inadvertently give the whole endeavour a somewhat enigmatic feel, which kind of works in its favour at least to a certain extent. I suppose it mostly falls under the rape/revenge sub-genre of film, which was quite popular at the time. It isn't really a very graphic example of this type of film though. Although I did find think the nastiest scene was the one where two of the bullies terrorise a nice cashier girl in a convenience store. They stop short of either killing or assaulting her but they humiliate her nevertheless. It was a scene I found very unpleasant to tell you the truth. The subsequent, more typical rape/revenge material was done in ways that was less disturbing oddly enough. Overall, while it's undeniable that this is a film with pacing problems, it does have a lo-fi ambiance that ensures that it's worth a watch, especially if you like 70's exploitation.

Axe (1974)

** (out of 4)

Extremely low-budget thriller about three crazy criminals who are on the run and decide to stop in at a farm house where they take things over. Lisa (Leslie Lee) stays at the house taking care of her paralyzed grandfather but the three criminals don't know what they've gotten themselves into.

AXE was released under countless titles back in the day when low-budget movies like this could play across the country on drive-in screens for years. At just 67 minutes there's really not too much plot wise as what we've basically got a mix between THE DESPERATE HOURS and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Even though this film got on the Video Nasties list it really isn't all that shocking, graphic or gross.

Again, there's really not too much here and there's really zero character development or any sort of story. The three criminals harass some people. They wind up at the house and you can guess what happens to them. Director Frederick R. Friedel isn't Stanley Kubrick but I thought he did an okay job with the material and at least tried to make it somewhat different than your run of the mill psycho movie. I thought the music score was rather effective and I liked that the director at least tried to create some stuff through the editing.

I also thought Lee was better than average in the lead. She really doesn't get too many lines and instead she goes around as the silent type but I thought she was effective enough. Jack Canon was also good as the criminal Steele. As I said, there's some minor gore footage but nothing all that believable. The highlight is the sequence where the criminals harass a store clerk and the "shot" joke was rather funny.

AXE certainly isn't a masterpiece or even a good movie but if you enjoy this type of low-budget stuff then there's certainly much worse out there.

"Axe" is an oddball piece of work that seems to avoid a lot of the horror standards. The flow of the film has a refreshing feeling of randomness that makes it work. Not a lot is explained in this film so viewers are left to discuss the who, what and why amongst themselves and die hard 70's low budget sleaze fans might even try to pick out a story after repeated viewings. "Axe" is competently shot and edited. As an aficionado of 70's b movies I personally felt that it has a great look to it. An atmosphere of paranoid weirdness is developed early on and digs in on the viewer. The film also scores points for it's original soundtracking although the main hook from the intro theme gets a little over used at times. The acting is on par for the course, no remarkable talent here, but some cool characters. The one guy who looks like Bob Ross adds an interesting dynamic to the group of thugs, it's hard to figure out why exactly he's rolling with them. The girl who plays Lisa is rather pretty and her performance is effective enough to draw sympathy from the viewer during the more tense scenes.

Nothing mindblowing here, but fans of the era and genre who have a bit of patience will enjoy this one. Gore fanatics might feel cheated by Axe but lovers of strange "wtf is going on here" movies should give this one a swing.

Three gangsters commit murder, then take to the road where they end up at the farm of a disturbed young woman.

An effectively spooky character portrayal by Leslie Lee and some good filming locations, doesn't quite save this ultra low-budgeter from being an unsatisfying horror flick. While it does have the occasional moment of gore, Axe a.k.a. Lisa, Lisa makes for an uneven slasher film and is a bit too light on the violence to really be considered a true exploitation thriller. It's pretty much a mixed bag, that never really finds its effectiveness. The films choppy editing and stilted direction definitely takes away from it too.

So, all in all it's kind of hard to find a place for this weird B flick, the curious may find something of interest in it, but don't expect another Last House on the Left (1972).

* 1/2 out of ****