Sledgehammer (1983)

Sledgehammer has to be seen to believed. It is a low tech, shot on video film with the most excessive use of slow motion footage I have ever seen. It's like your uncle just got a new camcorder - back when they were massive things that had to sit on your shoulder - and he was experiementing with the new slo-mo feature.

There doesn't seem to be any reason for it either. It appears totally randomly and makes the movie unbearable. There are slow motion scenes of luggage throwing, walking in a field, walking in a hallway, shutting a door, turning a doorknob, people listening to a scary story, fighting, falling, and more of the same all over again.

The story is about a bunch of friends who plan to stay the weekend in an old cabin that hasn't been lived in for ten years due to murders that took place there. While the outside shot looks like an old cabin, when the gang goes inside, it looks like a modern day condo.

The group is supposed to be a fun loving bunch, but they act like idiots. They make lame jokes, have a nasty food fight, and get drunk. There's a subplot that goes nowhere involving the main couple who aren't sure whether to get married, even though the guy already asked her and she said yes.

Chuck, the muscular blond leading man, decides to have a seance where they will try to contact the spirits of the two people murdered by a sledgehammer in the livingroom. The story is that a man and woman were having an affair in the cabin. The woman locked her little boy in the closet so he wouldn't get in their way. The two adulterers were murdered, but the little boy was never found.

As Chuck weaves his tale of death, his friend goes into another room and uses a boombox to play a tape with a spooky voice, which is supposed to fool the others. Chuck's seance also awakens the hulking ghostly sledgehammer killer, who has apparently just been waiting for someone to have a seance in the cabin.

The killer goes to the room with boombox and kills the friend....with a knife. But what about the sledgehammer he was carrying? Where'd he get the knife? No explanation is ever offered. The rest of the killing is done with a sledgehammer but its extremely tame. There isn't much blood and other than the opening segments sledgehammer to the back of the head, there aren't any special effects - just blood smeared on people.

There is a soft focus on some scenes, which is pointless. The hallway is the narrowest hallway in existence, (you wouldn't be able to get any furniture through it). At one point, the killer appears in the hallway, and you can see that the "wall" behind him is not even attached to anything as there is a big gap on the left side. Also the killer must widen his stance to step over the cameraman who is shooting from the floor.

There are flashbacks in the film which are the exact same footage from earlier in the film!??! We've already seen it, and even if they felt the need to refresh our memories, they didn't have to show the entire scene.

The acting is subpar. Chuck does a really bad Bill Murray imitation during one drunken scene. No one can realistically imitate being drunk, which is a problem since much of their time is spent drinking. The food fight scene in the kitchen is really strange, and its just plain gross watching the guy in the football jersey shove an entire sandwich into his mouth.

I liked the record player in the cabin, but they were listening to 45s and had no spindle to stack them on. This means that someone is going to have to get up to change the record every two to three minutes, which is not practical during a party.

The killer is a huge hulking figure in a clear halloween mask - the ones that bank robbers used to wear during the 70s. He appears and disappears randomly. Then he changes into the little boy who was locked in the closet. Then he changes back to the hulk. Why?

We are left with so many questions and no explanations. Why does the killer randomly change into the little boy and back again? If the little boy died, then why is the killer a behemouth instead of a little boy? How and where did the boy die? Since he was never found, he didn't die there, so why is his ghost haunting this cabin? Why would a seance bring back the killer instead of the victims? Why does the sledgehammer randomly appear and disappear? Is it a ghost? If you have a sledgehammer and you're huge, why would you kill someone with a knife?

The scariest thing about this movie is the hair. This is 80s blow dried hair at its worst. The guy with the massive mullet blow dry do and mustache is the scariest. But the lead couple both have the same mullet so that's not very pleasant either.