The Blade Cuts Deeper review
A slasher movie that throws back to an era further back than usual.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Blade Cuts Deeper
Directed by Gene Dolders
Written by A J Ballard and Gene Dolders
Starring John Tueart, Kristin Jaap, James Podmore, Vicki Avery, Quentin J. Gray, Saul Murphy, Lucy Renton and Peter Durr
The Blade Cuts Deeper Review
The Blade Cuts Deeper seems to revel in leaving you with complicated feelings. Narratively it makes interesting choices in its antagonist and his targets. Stylistically it makes equally interesting choices in pacing and tone. The result is a slasher movie that throws back to a time before the fast paced kill scene obsessed movies of the 80s. A movie that owes more to Argento and Bava than Craven and Carpenter. Though those latter directors owe a dept to the former as well. Carpenter especially. His Halloween masterwork has the tension and patience of a giallo film…just without the stylishly gory punchlines.
Friday the 13th Part 2 never gets the credit of it…but it’s where I place the change in slasher movies going forward. Halloween, of course, popularized the subgenre. Friday the 13th and a host of other quick knockoffs followed its suspense driven roadmap. Friday the 13th Part 2 is when things started to speed up. Considerably. I’ve long argued that most of the 80s slasher boom…containing some of the cheapest and worst slashers ever made…were riffing on Part 2 more than anything else. Which itself was riffing on the original…which was riffing on Halloween…which was riffing on Black Christmas…and so on. Friday 2 is the one that popularized the fast chases, rapid fire death scenes and music video style cuts. The Blade Cuts Deeper harkens back to a time before that.
The story is simple enough…even compelling in a complicated way alluded to in the opening paragraph. A TV show host (John Tueart) becomes the target of a masked killer who will eliminate anyone who gets in his way. Solid enough outline for a slasher story, right? What makes it a bit more interesting is that the host, John Abbott, is a real piece of trash. He treats everyone around him like garbage. When one of his true crime re-enactments sends someone over the edge…he ends up putting everyone in danger. Abbott is incredibly unlikable (which means Tueart has done a great job). The kind of person you wouldn’t mind meeting a deadly fate in a horror film. So…who are we supposed to root for?
It’s one of those questions that is easier to answer in real life. Killing is wrong. Don’t root for the killer. On the other hand, this is a movie…and movies have their own set of rules. Especially slasher movies. When a character is presented to be as unlikable as Abbott is here…you’re predisposed to root for his demise. It’s fine to do in the context of a fictional narrative. Unfortunately, the masked man is going to kill a lot of less guilty people along the way. Like I said…who are we supposed to root for?
The answer is nobody. The Blade Cuts Deeper isn’t presenting a black and white story meant to satisfy your bloodlust one way or the other. It’s simply telling a story with some good people, some bad people, and the murderer who doesn’t care about the difference. There’s a coldness to the material that feels right at home with the patient, stylish atmosphere created. We spend time with several characters…learn enough about them to have a sense of who they are…and watch as the masked killer renders all of it worthless. There’s something neat about it…but, like the narrative itself, something complicated too. While it’s never boring…it’s also rarely “fun”. Slashers don’t have to be fun. Post-Friday the 13th Part 2 they often have been…but The Blade Cuts Deeper comes from a different time and place.
The Blade Cuts Deeper prioritizes style over thrill. The button is always a delightfully gory death…but it gets there patiently, utilizing music cues and camerawork to build suspense. The practical effects are excellent…and the way the camera lingers on the aftermath is terrific. It feels like a pre-80s boom slasher film. Moreso than many imitators who have tried to evoke it over the years.
As for the complications in rooting interest…The Blade Cuts Deeper finds an elegant solution once the inevitable showdown come. There’s a strong body count before we arrive here…bodies of people we know don’t deserve it as much as Abbott does. So, are we rooting for the man who just killed those people? Or are we rooting for the bastard whose malice of forethought caused it all to happen? There might seem to be no good answer to that…but The Blade Cuts Deeper has already thought it through. It sticks the landing on a journey that isn’t always the most exciting…but is always true to itself.
Scare Value
The Blade Cuts Deeper knows exactly what it wants to be. While it may hit a lull here and there, it is always confidently heading to the right place. A final showdown between two morally deficient people with us serving as viewers to their depravity. One uses weapons to inflict physical violence. The other uses his position and deplorable attitude to hurt people emotionally. Thankfully, The Blade Cuts Deeper knows exactly what to do when that face off arrives.
3/5
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