Moviecut—Savage Weekend

The plot = A bunch of people goes to the country side and fix up they're friends boat and surprise surprise a killer shows up and starts picking them off one by one. To be honest I just didn't get this movie at all, for a start it takes way too long for anything to happen and when it does well, it's just forgettable, I mean I couldn't remember a single killing, because when it finally does happen, I was dropping off to sleep at the boringness of the first hour or so. The film is just so shoddy and not very well done, as you can see the boom mic in practically every shot and the acting was appalling at the best of times, like the part where the girl seems to enjoy getting raped, that was just stupid and laughable. There are just way too many plot holes which makes this movie hard to follow. The only thing I liked was the ending I was actually quite surprised by the identity of the killer, but by then It was too late to save this movie. All in all This movie had no imagination at all and deserves to be forgotten, you're more likely to yawn than be scared by this.

Writer / director David Paulsen ("Schizoid") got something of a head start on the slasher craze with this offering. It predates Carpenters' "Halloween" by two years; it was filmed in 1976, but not released until 1980. It's just weird enough - and kinky enough - to be watchable, although it may not appeal to some hardcore devotees of the genre as it takes a long time to begin its murder spree, and even at that point there's really no gore to speak of. Instead, what we get is a lot of odd touches and interesting character details, not to mention a fair bit of humour. Marie (Marilyn Hamlin) goes on a weekend excursion to the country with her new husband Robert (Jim Doerr), her younger sister Shirley (Caitlin O'Heaney, "He Knows You're Alone"), and their openly gay friend Nicky (Christopher Allport, "Dead & Buried"). Soon, their good time is ruined by a psychopath wearing a goofy Halloween mask. While there are no real A-list stars here, there are certainly some very recognizable faces. O'Heaney has some seriously sexy moments (viewers will definitely appreciate the doses of nudity in this film). Allport is amusing, even if his character is somewhat stereotypical. It's great fun to see David Gale of future "Re-Animator" fame as a lumber man providing wood for a boat that Robert is building with some associates. Top notch character actor William Sanderson is a vivid, unkempt redneck / red herring. A very young Yancy Butler makes her film debut. It's not surprising that Hamlin never got much acting work, because she's simply atrocious here. There might not be enough here to completely satisfy some slasher fans, but it remains rather offbeat for its 88 minute time and it is worth a look. Six out of 10.

Struggling through "Savage Weekend", I was instantly reminded of "Deliverance". Not necessarily because the film also takes place in a remote backwoods area or because there's banjo music playing during the opening credits, but merely because this is such an incompetent and amateurish production that it looks as if it were written and directed by that infamous mentally underdeveloped Banjo Kid from that classic film! This movie is bad, and not just low-budget bad but really BAD to the third degree. We're talking incoherent screenplay, insufferable characters, long stretches of boredom where absolutely nothing happens, predictable twists, laughable killing sequences and utterly senseless dialogs. There's already something very wrong with the title of this dud. "Savage Weekend" is misleading because there's no savagery going on at all. 45 minutes of sheer boredom and then a handful of lousy and bloodless murders does not equal savage in my dictionary. "Sleazy Weekend" I would have accepted, since there's really a lot of sex and female nudity, and "Nonsensical Weekend" would have even been better! Two couples and one flamboyant gay boy head out to a woodsy region to check up on the construction of a boat owned by one of them; a wealthy stockbroker. A considerable amount of time later, we witness someone putting on a reasonably unsettling mask and going on a killer rampage. One of the boat's workmen – Otis – has a grisly past and behaves suspiciously, but the film tries too hard to make him look guilty so you quickly know that it won't be him. There isn't a single moment of genuine suspense or horrific excitement and even the sex sequences start to look tedious and work on your nerves after a while. That's just never a good sign. According to the trivia section on this website, the finished film remained shelved for several years. Well, in my humble opinion, it should have remained shelved for all eternity.

Savage Weekend (1979) * 1/2 (out of 4) Five New Yorkers head to the country so that one of them can check on a boat that he's having built. Once there they settle in but soon a psycho in a mask shows up and starts killing them off. SAVAGE WEEKEND might seem like a Friday THE 13TH or HALLOWEEN clone but this here was actually made in 1976 but not released until 1979. With that in mind, it's easy to see why this thing wasn't released because outside of a few good things there's really not too much here worth watching. The biggest problem with this picture is that it's pretty much deadly dull and you're just waiting around forever for something fun or interesting to happen but you just keep waiting and waiting. The boredom is the film's biggest fault as we're introduced to some slightly interesting characters but absolutely nothing is done with them. We get incredibly boring subplots that just drag the film down even more. The characters are pretty much what you'd expect from a one-note film like this. You've got the divorced woman fearful of her ex but she's still with her new boyfriend. You've got the * friend and of course there's a good-looking man there for her. The fifth member of the group is a gay man who is basically just comic relief but I will admit that he's the best thing about the film. Not only do we get some funny scenes with him but he also manages to beat up some rednecks in a local bar. The murder sequences are all mostly forgettable as there's not enough memorable violence or gore to recommend this to horror fans. The actual mystery is kept fairly well but at the same time you don't really care who is killing everyone. The film ends with a decent machete versus chainsaw battle and I will admit that the set-up of the picture pays off nicely at the end. Still, SAVAGE WEEKEND is a forgettable horror film that not even the non-stop nudity can save.

This movie has much * and sex in this, and this nearly like a porno movie. Still its using sex and * to spice up a recycle story-like, which you seem in many similar body count horror movies. Yet there is no token black man in this, maybe this wasn't bought in the 70's. Other than the sex and *, the story is completed trash, low budget and daft. It says on the back of the box, makes Texas chain saw massacre look like kid stuff. What a load of crap. There is the usual brainless hill billy, who is made to be prime suspect that he is the killer, he is too daft to be a killer. What thing i do like about this movie, the characters are all adults, its not a movie base around teenagers, or having people in their 20's and 30's pretending to be teenagers either. Yet these people act and behave like teenagers you seem in similar horror movies. This movie is cheap and highly stupid.

Low budget "slasher" film of a very odd, sometimes interesting nature about a group of people going to upstate New York for the weekend only to find death. It seems that the man who owns the property there is building/restoring a boat - which otherwise does not figure prominently into the story. While some of the scenes are very tense and horrific, the film also has oodles of gratuitous nudity, a homosexual man flaunting it and sticking sharp objects into himself for no apparent reasons, and some really strange locals that make upstate New York look like Hillbilly land. The cast is made up of unknowns, but most of them are adequate in their limited roles. There is a bizarre sexual current throughout the film. The first "real" death doesn't come for almost an hour, so this isn't that fast-paced in any way. Yet, despite its inadequacies, Savage Weekend is not your average, run-of-the-mill slasher film. There are, as previously mentioned, some very shockingly filmed scenes. The basement scene with the saw being one EXCEPT for the resolution of that scene. The film has a hanging, a duel with a machete and a chainsaw, an impaling, and one individual is needled in the most extreme manner. What was that whole scene with the hook about?

My 1 out of 10 rating is for the Substance (Music Video Distribution) DVD version of the film. Very disappointing release of this obscure slasher movie. This DVD has all nudity and extended violence cut from the print. If you want this uncut, get the old Paragon VHS version. I figured this would be a VHS quality picture put onto DVD, but I didn't think it would come out chopped to bits. If you can't get these films out uncut, then just don't release them. This DVD makes the film look horribly dull, and pointless. In actuality, the uncut film is not bad if you like this genre. Boooooooooo to Substance. Makes me wonder if their other DVD releases are cut also including "Pranks" and "Tanya's Island"?

Savage Weekend is quite an interesting movie. It's intriguing because, while it looks like many of the countless slice and dice flicks that made up the slasher cycle, it was in fact made some time before these films became popularised and clichéd. It displays some facets that would go on to constitute the classic style slasher film, yet it was made in 1976 and only released three years later in the wake of the huge success of Halloween (1978). It seems to clearly have been a movie somewhat ahead of its time in this respect. Its story is one that would go on to become fairly standard in this sub-genre. A group of rich urban friends travel to a remote location for some R&R, before long a masked psychopath begins picking them off. Notably, the characters here are adults, in this respect it deviates from the later slasher template which focused almost exclusively on teenagers. One thing these adults do have in common with their teenage descendants, however, is that they seem to spend an inordinate amount of time having sex. In fact Savage Weekend is pretty ram packed with abundant nudity. On the other hand, it also spends an unusually long time on the plot set-up, with a reasonable amount of character development before the killer finally kicks into action. Maybe it spends a little too long on the build-up in fairness, as it does feel at times that the movie could do with a little more thrills and suspense but in the final half hour, the bloody action is certainly ramped up. The cast was also quite notable for featuring a couple of actors who would go on to star in two 80's cult classics - William (Blade Runner) Sanderson and David (Re-Animator) Gale play a couple of the local hicks. The other most prominent presence in the film was unquestionably the boom mic, which popped up so often and in such hilariously prominent ways that I felt that it should really have been given a special mention in the end credits.

Savage Weekend is a very good film. Of course it does not have high production value, but as far as content and story-line are concerned it is awesome. The film captivated me with its alluring plot and horror filled moments. Christopher Allport is wonderful in the role of 'Mother' Nicky, especially when he shows his true nature in the bar scene. Unfortunately this film is very rare. I was lucky enough to find a copy at a local video store that was going out of business so I picked it up. If you ever find this film to buy or rent take advantage of it and you will not be sorry. It is a good film to watch with your friends, and like the last contributor mentioned, watching it with your girlfriend. She will be so scared that she won't want to let go of you. I love this movie so much that my friends and I created our own sequel of sorts a few years ago via our camcorder. Granted we are not very good actors and we didn't take much time to plan anything, it is still fun to watch. Long live Savage Weekend, it rocks!