PopHorror Let's Get Scared
I’m gonna give you an example of how I shop for movies: “What’s this? Five bucks!? Ho ho ho! This must be golden! Into the basket you go!” Of course, there’s a reason they’re only five bucks: because (usually) they’re no good. I’ve yet to learn my lesson, and probably never will, but that’s definitely a plus for those of you who enjoy reading my reviews of rubbish such as Sledge, a horror/comedy that takes a sledgehammer to your entertainment.
A lady (Rachel Cornell) sits on a couch watching Assly’s True American Horror. Tonight, they are bringing you Sledge, the story of Adam Lynch (writer/director Kristian Hanson), a vicious serial killer who likes bashing his victims with a sledgehammer (yup, they’re going the movie-within-a-movie route here, folks). In Sledge, we follow a group of twenty-something death fodder as they go into the woods for a little camping trip – which means drinking and rolling about in their tents. But – lo and behold! – Lynch just happens to be in the same woods. We all know where it goes from here.
First off, Sledge was made for only $800. So I gotta give ‘em kudos for being able to compile a feature film for less money than I have on my Discover card. And Sledge does do you a favor by giving you a hint that what you are about to watch is gonna be pretty rank: the production company is named Craptastically Horrific Productions. After watching Sledge I realized this wasn’t just a clever name. Once again, kudos for the heads-up.
Okay, moving along. Let’s go ahead and get the good outta the way. Dustin Bowman, who plays Alex of the Twenty-Something Death Fodder Group, is actually enjoyable to watch and has a sort of Randall Graves vibe about him. Also enjoyable is Kristian Hanson; he is able to turn Adam Lynch into a somewhat comical killer, even though the voice he uses is annoying and comes off as a desperate attempt at humor. The film clocks in at 75 minutes, so the torture is mercifully short. And the soundtrack isn’t bad.
With those bits aside we can move onto the real meat of the movie – which amounts to three prime cuts of Lazy, Uninteresting and Annoying. Here’s an example of just how lazy the filmmakers are: Sledge contains a scene in which the characters are sitting around a campfire; they mention the campfire several times; they even bring marshmallows to make s’mores with. What’s so lazy about this? Spoiler: there’s no actual campfire. (The filmmakers do show the top of the campfire at the very beginning of the scene, but the lack of light on the characters or in the surrounding area makes it obvious it was digitally inserted. It also seems like an afterthought. Therefore, it may as well have not even been there at all.) Simple solution: make a campfire. Oh, they’re somewhere where they can’t make a campfire? Then get a nice big television and put on a video of a campfire (easily found on YouTube) to at least simulate the light. Too impractical? Okay then: don’t have the characters sitting around a campfire. Hell, have them sitting around a lantern for all I care. Just show me that you actually care about the presentation of your film. Otherwise, why should I care?
Another lazy bit that boggles me is in the opening scene which features a living room with a television in the corner playing Assly’s True American Horror. This whole scene is nothing more than the camera zooming in on a photo with Assly’s digitally inserted. How do I know it’s a photo? Well, aside from the shadows remaining perfectly stationary, the camera flash on the TV’s frame is a dead giveaway. So they could film Assly’s, but they couldn’t just slap it on a DVD, put it in a player, then play it while filming an actual living room and TV? No, because that would require effort.
The same level of laziness is seen in the kills and gore. Kills amount to little more than characters being bashed with a sledgehammer; gore amounts to little more than meat sauce being tossed about. If a kill involves anything more elaborate than simply hitting a person, you can bet it’ll happen off-screen with the only indication of such being a grunt and some meat sauce flying by the camera. Smash a watermelon for all I care, but just give me one good money shot! Nope, that’s too much to ask of this movie!
Annoying comes in the form of constantly referencing better movies that I could be watching. Oh, and did I mention that this flick goes the Scream route by being “meta” and “hip”? Sorry Sledge, but we already have four Scream films – we don’t need another, nor do we need one doing exactly what that film did almost ten years ago. And yes, the movie-within-a-movie route is pretty annoying; not only does the girl on the couch constantly tell us how bad-yet-awesome this flick is, we also get the obligatory mock trailer for a movie that rips of the title of a “Weird Al” Yankovic song. Of course, none of this serves much of a purpose except to pad out the runtime – and wear my patience thin.
Beyond all this, however, the biggest sin this movie commits is simply being uninteresting. We’ve seen all this before and seen it done better. Also, it’s a horror/comedy that forgot the comedy. Sure, you might chuckle once or twice but I’ve laughed more at funerals. All the laziness and annoying antics could have been forgiven had this movie actually delivered the groceries. But it doesn’t, so it can burn in Movie Hell for all I care.
Final Thoughts:
Sledge is rubbish. This flick seems to exist only for Hanson to say to his friends, “Hey dudes, I made a movie. What are you doing with your life?” In other words: ego masturbation. It’s like that roommate who never pays rent: no purpose other than just being there. Go read troll comments on YouTube instead. Far more entertaining.
