"The Mutilator"(1985)d/Buddy Cooper

Pretty choice poster,eh?Always dug this one.
Although this movie exists purely as a vehicle for Mark Shostrom's grisly gore effects(two big thumbs up for Mark,as always),I like the damned thing for some reason.It isn't the plot,which is sub-standard even in the slasher subgenre.Hell,I've seen amateur s.o.v. stuff that had a better developed storyline and script than this.It isn't the non-actors whose performances in this heavy-handed affair make Keanu Reeves look like Sir Laurence Olivier.Let's not even touch upon the corny 80's pop-drenched title puke-tune that John Tesh and Yanni could outmacho on a bad day.In fact,let's not even investigate the why's or the how's here,and just accept that somehow,this piece of crap manages to entertain me to this day.

I'm pretty sure that's Ben Moore's headless torso.Score one for the Wop.
Ed Jr. wants to surprise his pop by cleaning his gun collection for him on his birthday.In between polishing his hunting rifles,the boy empty-headedly blasts his own mother in the back,severing her spine,laying waste to her dorsal aorta,and effectively killing her,with a rifle he assumes isn't loaded.Oops.Hap-py birthday,Ed Sr.,Hap-py birthday to...yeah,Big Ed doesn't much appreciate his impromptu birthday gift.By the time the cops arrive,Big Ed is pouring a whiskey shot down his lifeless wife's yap.Sanity,it was nice knowing ya.I bet Ed's dad is gonna cause him some major grief over this later on in the story.....

Is that a 19/0 freshwater hook skewered through this chick's vadge?Score another one for Wop A. Licious.
An undistinguishable amount of years later,Ed Jr. is lamenting a lack of rad fall break plans with his semi-homely girlfriend and his small gaggle of talentless actors/chums/victims at the bar,when the bartender informs him he's got a call.On the phone Big Ed himself tells his boy he's gotta re-route the gang to their beach house,so he can clean up his father's drunken mess.Hmmm,beach house,fall break,party?Sounds like our cue for a flaccid road trip montage with obligatory banal 80's pop title track.Roll those generic opening credits,boys.

An outboard motor and the human midsection,strange bedfellows indeed.
Ed Jr. tells his pals all about his father who seems to be missing, and his obsessions with hunting/fishing/killing at the beach house,and how "he's hunted everything except man".He also fills them in on his dad's perpetual state of mental crackers since his wife's death years ago,and that pop never really forgave him for the tragic accident.Hmmm,Big Ed isn't around,he's fucking bonkers,he's a master hunter,and he's got a mile-wide chip on his shoulder towards his son who just dragged his buddies to a beach house during the off-season when one(that's right...one.)cop(Ben Moore,of H.G. Lewis' "2,000 Maniacs!" fame) walks the sandy beat.I'm gonna go ahead and assume that bad things will start to happen immediately to Ed Jr. and his friends,and it's a safe bet that his psychopathic,homicidal dad might be the culprit behind them.Well that,and his father's authentic medieval battle axe is missing from its display hooks on the wall.I'm gonna go ahead and say somebody's gonna end up eating that thing before too long.

What did this film's producers have against Ben Moore?I thought he was great in "2,000 Maniacs!" ferchrissakes.
Surprise!Big Ed springs into bloody action after sleeping off a major hangover and dreaming about 86ing his own son,killing any and everybody in unusually gruesome fashion(despite some poor lighting),with the director bunging logic into the bin in some cases just to up the movie's body count.That's admirable,really.Pitchforks,outboard motors,battleaxes,and even really effin' huge fish hooks become implements of death in Big Ed's hands,until the only couple left to thwart the bloodthirsty killer,is ironically(not really),his own son and semi-homely girlfriend.Big Ed gets bisected at the waist,but a fatal injury just isn't enough to stop the guy from hacking a leg off with his favorite battle axe,just for good measure.He's laughing,I'm laughing,we're all laughing.

Big Ed(Jack Chatham) gets the last laugh.Kinda sorta.