Depends on the version, but a few of them are pretty good based solely on how strong the story itself is. I prefer the Vincent Price one myself.
Finally got around to watching Savage Weekend after holding off for a while. It was released in 1979 due to the success of Halloween, but was actually filmed and shelved in 1976 I believe.
The basic premise has the Slasher motives going on: A group of middle aged friends embark from New York to the rural country side to finish construction on a boat. The inept worker who was suppose to finish construction of the boat, Otis (Played by William Sanderson and the only actor I recognized) has been slacking off and visiting his dead cousin in between to discuss the project. Otis supposedly killed said cousin and another man prior to these events, foreshadowing his role further into the film.
Non of the protagonists are likable by any means, they are rude and openly scoff Otis and the locals in front of them while being generally annoying to all around them for most of the running film. You never have any reason to like them. The only character I enjoyed for the rather strong but bizarre performance was Nicky (Played by Christopher Allport) a homoesexual man who is usually in hot pants. In one of the opening scenes he casually strolls into a redneck bar and orders a martini, flirting with the bartender and causing trouble. When two hoodlums eventually antagonize him and start a brawl, Nicky beats the living shit out of them and threatens to kill one with a broken beer bottle before being run off by said Bartender, but not before delivering this zinger “That’s what the south Bronx taught me kiddos” or something to that effect.
The whole film feels so lopsided from traditional Slasher fare. No one is likable, they openly antagonize the locals with comments or sexual advances, there is a lot of pointless (Story wise) sex scenes and inner drama.
One of the kills I will say is pretty inventive and foreshadowed well, outside of that specific kill the rest are tame by modern standards and go along briskly. The killer’s mask is decent for what it is as well. When the big reveal happens it isn’t to much of a shock if you’ve been following along, but the final battle between redneck mustache man (RMM for short) and the revealed killer defies all logic.
RMM is about a foot taller and built far superior to his opponent, yet is usually on the losing edge. The final girl just stands around crying instead of helping out. It is only when another character enters the picture to chainsaw the revealed killer does the struggle end, leaving RMM a bloodied mess and ending on a grinning idiot.
If you want to see a Slasher before the Slasher genre was more defined, be my guest. I caught it on Amazon Prime as a free title and initially took an interest after reading up on it in Horrorhound. Not a great movie by any means, but decent enough.
Outside of that caught Blade Runner Final Cut and Manhunter, I may speak more on Manhunter here as out of all the Hannibal films made I feel it is the strongest and creates a dreamlike setting with more investigative work involved.
Also I looked up Scream Factory’s future release schedule, and in 2015 Robert Englund’s starring role in The Phantom of the Opera remake is being released on BD from negatives with added special features. I’ve praised this film for years now, so I hope some of you are able to catch it now that it will have a wider release and some loving care put into the disc.
