For a film called “Axed,” I was expecting something really dark and gruesome, and yet in the end I didn’t realize how trying Ryan Lee Driscoll’s horror drama would be. It’s a practice in tedium and boredom, with a mean spirit that is often very forced. If that’s not enough the direction leaves much to be desired with a series of performances that are sub-par at best. It’s a despicable film about a despicable man, torturing despicable people for no real reason, when it all boils down to it.
Kurt is a man who was just laid off from his job, and is now redundant. Baffled and infuriated, he decides the people who should pay once and for all, are his family. It’s tough to empathize with anything this man does at any point in the film. Because he’s written to be such a mean and disgusting man who can barely stand to be around his family most times. When his son is beaten up he berates him for getting hurt, and harps on his wife and daughter angrily. One day he drives them to the countryside for a day off, and soon begins to put them through a series of torturous tests, as well as spend most of the time humiliating and debasing them. We’re never really sure why he feels such antipathy toward his family, if only for the reason that he’s such a loathsome bastard, and somehow feels justified in his actions.
To make things worse, he’s kidnapped and tortured his wife’s lover in the attic, and things go from bad to worse over the course of the story. Oddly enough the movie never gets any better or more watchable. It’s a lot of melodramatic dysfunctional family drama, that never quite amounts to dread or suspense at any moment. Star Jonathan Hansler can never quite balance out his moods and unraveling sanity, so whenever he shouts or loses his temper, he looks like he has tourette’s, while Christopher Rithin can barely keep up with the film’s intended frights. Does Kurt hate his son for being potentially Gay, or for not admitting to anyone he may be Gay? Does Kurt lust after his daughter, or just has no respect for her? Does Kurt hate his wife for cheating on him, or does he hate her for failing in his original intentions for her adultery?
None of it makes any sense and is completely half baked. The editing is even worse, as most of the film’s violence is so poorly staged, it’s hard to soak in the intended shock value the director aims for. Whenever character Kurt begins attacking anyone with an axe, the editing is so choppy you can see he’s mostly holding back his swings. There’s even an especially goofy fight with his son who uses a log to block his dad’s axe swings. These people are so unlikable and hateful, it’s tough to really put yourself in their shoes and root for any of them, thus “Axed” really fails at its genre efforts. “Axed” is a terrible horror melodrama that is twenty minutes much too long and never garners much of a point.