Deadly Manor (1990)
Directed by Jose Ramon Larraz
Another slasher, another movie that is on Tubi. If it wasn’t for Tubi, my marathon would be lost right? Was this worth my watch? I mean, other than being able to mark it off my slasher movie list.
Deadly Manor is about a group of young people that take refuge in an old deserted mansion. Soon the members of the group start being taken out one by one. Sure we’ve seen it before, but have we seen it at a snail’s pace and incredibly underwhelming “payoff” I THINK NOT! The plot is so cliche that my head hurts thinking about it. I think that is this movie’s biggest issue. It isn’t truly bad enough to be remembered and it definitely isn’t good! What makes this movie straight up meh?
The acting is there. There are people, playing characters in a wide variety of mediocre. The cast is full of no names that MAYBE you might know from something else, but likely not. No one stands out to me in this, and for the life of me I can’t even recall the characters names. Peter? Is he the chubby guy on the motorcycle? If so he was alright, not great but better than the wooden air heads in this. The characters are not only boring, they’re also incredibly dumb. Numerous times any sane person would just fuckin leave the house. I mean the second they go in, and find a mural to a dead girl in the car parked out front, I’d probably get out. But hey, they’re dumb so they stay. Oh they also pick up a sketch hitchhiker on the way, so thats always a great decision. Even after some of their friends disappear, white shirt black vest guy is still willing to stick around and not even look for his girlfriend whom cheez it the fuck out of there before they walked in. Good guy!
The kills are…..this is going to be shocking, but they’re also meh! Do you think throat slashings are amazing and not overdone? Then Deadly Manor is for you my friend! There are slit throats galore! Now the killer. The killer looks like a mix of Buckethead, with the hair of Dave Mustaine. I urge you to look them up, and combine them in your melon bro. It’s spot on! Except this killer is…..the dead girl from the mural with a hideously jacked up face! Some stupid story about her being hot, then getting in an accident and jacking her face up, now her boyfriend kills people. I don’t know, by that time I kind of checked out.
I’ve seen hundreds of slashers, great ones, bad ones, and boring ones. The boring ones are the worst. Now is this a horrible movie? No, it is competently shot and the acting, while poor isn’t rock bottom like others. I cannot think of a better word to describe this movie, other than meh. The director isn’t trash, he’s made more interesting movies such as Rest in Pieces and Edge of the Axe, the latter being well liked in the slasher community. Deadly Manor is a bore and I fell on a D+. It isn’t Terror at Tenkiller bad but its not good either.
