Edge of the Axe (Al filo del hacha, 1987-1988)

US Arrow Video Blu-ray edition - region all



Spanish horror cult director José Ramón Larraz (1929-2013), the man who made the beloved 1974 erotic horror classic "Vampyres"
and the controversial trashy 1982 erotic horror "Los ritos sexuales del Diablo" made this very late Slasher very late in his career.
Shot under his alias Joseph Braunstein it looks like he made his more violent and/or his erotic films using this alias.
The film was co-produced and filmed in the USA and Spain, with most of the shooting taking place in Madrid, Spain, and the
woods and the Lake looks very much as the Lake we saw in the 1978 Spanish giallo "Trauma (Violacion Fatal)" directed by León
Klimovsky, and otherwise it looks like some shooting may have been done in some wooded part of northern California.

The film is a late and very generic Slasher but it's well made and the finger chopping effect was also well made by Colin Arthur.
For me, as a lover of Spanish Golden era horror movies and gialli the Spanish co-production enables some cameo roles by iconic
actors of the golden Spanish 1970's. In the audio commentary they aren't mentioned much but two legendary american actors
active mainly in their new homeland Spain can be seen: Jack Taylor (born 1936 and still alive when writing this in December 2022)
as the Church organist, and Patty Shepard (1945-2013) as Laura, the nagging older wife of Page Moseley's Richard.

Below: The Hypnotic Gaze of lovely Patty Shepard in the 1973 "El asesino está entre los trece" (more about this film, see Gialli
& Eurocrime Page 1 and Forgotten Giallo Volume 1 -
The Killer is One of Thirteen)

In the intro a woman sitting in her car and using a Car-Wash is killed by a Psycho with an Axe, and then we gwt to see a female
farmer being harassed by the psycho who decapitates one of her pigs.
In the small town of Paddock (situated somewhere in the US north-west) lives the young man Gerald (Barton Faulks) and his
buddy Richard (Page Moseley) who runs a fumigating business and when on a job at a Bar they find a rotting corpse in the
attic hanging by a rope. Next victim is the bar girl Rita (Alicia Moro) and the asshole idiot cop, Sheriff Frank (Fred Holliday)
declares both cases as suicide or accidents. The Killer wears a White Mask and carries an axe.



Above: Reversible sleeve

The film is presented in 1.85: widescreen with an English or Spanish audio version mono with english subtitles.
Region all. Extras:
An audio commentary with "The Hysteria Continues"(Slasher podcast) and another Audio commentary with Barton
Faulks and Matt Rosenblatt, "Gerald's Game" - Interview with actor Barton Faulks (11 minutes, 2020 Arrow Video),
Interview with actor Page Moseley (11 minutes, 2020 Arrow Video), "The Pain in Spain" - Interview with Special effects
man Colin Arthur, Image gallery, Original trailer

 

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