While "Savage Weekend" is by no means a good film, it managed to be a lot better than I thought it would be reading the plot synopsis...or even after watching the first 3 minutes.
The bad news first: the killer isn't the least bit scary, his identity is pretty obvious, and his so-called keystone speech (where he rants about how people used to be like ants to him in his job as a,um, lobbyist???) is just plain goofy. And the murders themselves aren't especially vivid or visceral. And things don't really crank up in the violence department until nearly halfway in.
But there are a lot of interesting elements that keep it from being too blah or unwatchable. There's an unusually moody folk/bluegrass soundtrack adding a somber "Deliverance" feel to the proceedings that gives the screenplay a little weight it might not have otherwise. A couple of the actors manage to inject some interest and humanity into their cardboard characters, especially the actor playing the flamboyantly "gay" character and also William Sanderson, who puts some juice into the "geek" character that makes him more interesting to watch than you might suspect if you saw his lines in the screenplay. Some of the acting is awful, of course, and a few of the foreshadowing gimmicks were so predictable that that only question was exactly when they would prove out. And there was some really mean violence towards women, and some weirdly glazed portrayals of sex and sexual desire that might have been a bit too candid...like peeking inside the head of someone who had real issues with eroticism and normal human relations.
But, you know, that might have been the director's point. If this thing had had a real budget and some decent lighting and film stock, it would have been at least as watchable as one of the slicker (but hollow) 'Jason' sequels.
I'm not sorry I saw it, but I wouldn't pay money to see it again under any circumstance.
The bad news first: the killer isn't the least bit scary, his identity is pretty obvious, and his so-called keystone speech (where he rants about how people used to be like ants to him in his job as a,um, lobbyist???) is just plain goofy. And the murders themselves aren't especially vivid or visceral. And things don't really crank up in the violence department until nearly halfway in.
But there are a lot of interesting elements that keep it from being too blah or unwatchable. There's an unusually moody folk/bluegrass soundtrack adding a somber "Deliverance" feel to the proceedings that gives the screenplay a little weight it might not have otherwise. A couple of the actors manage to inject some interest and humanity into their cardboard characters, especially the actor playing the flamboyantly "gay" character and also William Sanderson, who puts some juice into the "geek" character that makes him more interesting to watch than you might suspect if you saw his lines in the screenplay. Some of the acting is awful, of course, and a few of the foreshadowing gimmicks were so predictable that that only question was exactly when they would prove out. And there was some really mean violence towards women, and some weirdly glazed portrayals of sex and sexual desire that might have been a bit too candid...like peeking inside the head of someone who had real issues with eroticism and normal human relations.
But, you know, that might have been the director's point. If this thing had had a real budget and some decent lighting and film stock, it would have been at least as watchable as one of the slicker (but hollow) 'Jason' sequels.
I'm not sorry I saw it, but I wouldn't pay money to see it again under any circumstance.