Savage Weekend (1979) Cannon/Horror RT: 88 minutes Rated R (violence, nudity, language) Director: David Paulsen Screenplay: David Paulsen Music: Dov Seltzer Cinematography: Zoltan Vidor Release date: November 28, 1980 (Philadelphia, PA) Cast: Christopher Allport, James Doerr, Marilyn Hamlin, Kathleen (Caitlin) Heaney, David Gale, Devin Goldberg, Jeffrey David Pomerantz, William Sanderson, Yancy Victoria Butler, Adam Hirsch. Box Office: N/A
Rating: *
Although classified as horror, the slasher flick Savage Weekend offers nothing in the way of scares, suspense, chills or gore. It is, in fact, a total bore. It takes nearly an hour for the masked killer to claim his first victim and trust me when I say it’s not worth the wait.
Filmed by writer-director David Paulsen (Schizoid) in 1976 under the title The Killer Behind the Mask, it was retitled Savage Weekend once Cannon acquired it in ’79. They released it to theaters in late ’80 as part of the cycle of slasher movies that followed in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th. I vaguely remember it opening in a few Philly area theaters. I have a clearer recollection of the box in the horror section of The Video Den. It didn’t even bother renting it because the manager told me it wasn’t the bloodbath promised by the title. He was right and now that I’ve finally seen it for myself, I’m glad I didn’t waste my hard-earned money on this lame and pointless venture.
Five New Yorkers head upstate for a weekend of fun and relaxation at a remote farmhouse. They are divorcee Marie (Hamlin), her boyfriend Robert (Doerr), her nympho sister Shirley (Heaney, He Knows You’re Alone), his smug business associate Jay (Goldberg, The Last Horror Film) and their openly gay friend Nicky (Allport, Dead & Buried). Jay’s there to assist in the building of a boat by a local, Otis (Sanderson, Blade Runner). According to the local rumor mill, Otis has a violent past that includes branding a female cousin with the letter H for “whore”. LOL! We all know how dumb hicks are, right?
To be honest, nobody in Savage Weekend is especially intelligent. Most people wouldn’t stick around if they found a dead bat nailed to the front door of the country house they just bought. It isn’t exactly a greeting from the Welcome Wagon. These city dummies ignore the obvious meaning and stick around anyway. They engage in the usual activities- sex, swimming, fishing, sunbathing and a lot of talking. Marie flirts with local lumberman Mac (Gale, Re-Animator). Jay and Shirley hook up until she realizes what an ass he is. Nicky cooks an elegant dinner. Everybody gets dressed up. They allow Mac to use the car for the night meaning no means of getting out of there. A bored Shirley does a striptease for Jay. To what end, I don’t know. Then the killing starts.
It’s probably because the rules of the slasher genre weren’t yet established when Savage Weekend was made, but it’s weird that the potential victims are adults in their 30s rather than teens. Marie has a kid of her own, for Jason’s sake! Call me crazy, but I’d rather see a bunch of dumb kids get wiped out than a bunch of adult idiots. I’m funny that way. They’re not even interesting idiots; they’re a pretty dull group. The mask the killer wears is equally lame; it looks like something you’d buy for 99 cents from the reject bin at a drug store at the last minute on Halloween night.
SPOILER ALERT! What really gets to me about Savage Weekend is how ridiculously easy it is to identify the man in the mask. Obviously, it could be one of the country hayseeds hanging around the scene. Paulsen wants you to think so. To the untrained eye, the prime suspect is Otis, a character established as unhinged early on. Besides the rumors about him, he has conversations with his recently deceased father at his gravesite. Also, he’s treated as inferior by the city folk. Taking all of this into consideration, he’s the one most likely to snap. He fits the profile to a tee which is why he can be eliminated as a suspect.
SPOILER ALERT CONTINUED! To find your killer, you have to go back to the beginning to the scene where the principal characters are introduced. This is where we briefly meet Marie’s ex-husband Greg (Pomerantz), a former governor’s aide whose career and mental state were destroyed by a political scandal. He stops by to take their kid for the weekend. He’s rude to Robert. There’s definitely something off about him. BINGO! Think about it a minute, why would Paulsen even bother to bring up his mental state if it’s not going to be pertinent later? It doesn’t take a Sherlock or Poirot to put it together before the end of the first reel. BTW, there’s also little doubt as to the identity of the final girl.
The only semi-interesting character in Savage Weekend is Nicky, a gay stereotype who gets all the best lines and scenes like when he goes into a redneck bar, baits a couple of dimwitted locals and beats them up. His bad ass line goes, “OK sweetheart, you come one more step towards me and I’ll make a Bloody Mary out of his face.” He’s a fun character, but I can see where some would find Allport’s swishy performance offensive. However, he’s the only cast member showing signs of life; the rest of the acting is as lifeless as the movie itself. BTW, Mac’s little girl is played by a very young Yancy Butler (Hard Target, Witchblade).
There’s a disappointing lack of gore in Savage Weekend, a movie that has a scantily clad woman tied to a table saw by the killer. There’s also a chainsaw on hand. Where’s the blood spurt? This movie is a tease. The kill scenes are unimaginative and poorly executed. Hell, the whole movie is poorly executed. Paulsen obviously wants to evoke the backwoods dread of Deliverance with the twanging banjo music on the soundtrack. He doesn’t even come close. Savage Weekend is inept on a technical level too. I lost count of the number of times I spotted boom microphones on the edges of scenes. How did it even get released?
At a mere 88 minutes, Savage Weekend is still slow and boring. That’s because nothing interesting happens in that short time frame. It’s as uneventful as a weekend seminar on pencil production. Hell, I’d rather attend a seminar on pencils; at least there’s a point to it.
