Sledgehammer (1983)
Directed by David A. Prior
The 80s, the rise of the video rental market and home video cameras. Slasher movies ruled the roost at the time and eventually you knew that someone was going to shoot a low budget slasher straight to video. Well….Sledgehammer is that movie. David A. Prior makes his directorial debut in this movie, of course his brother Ted was along for the ride, which became common in most of his movies. I bought this on DVD from amazon for $9. Was it worth it? Spoilers ahead guys!!
We open up with a physical title dripping blood and getting smashed by a sledgehammer, which is hilarious. Then we get our first shot, an establishing shot of a red house in the middle of nowhere. Once the white balance and focus of the camera finally settles we can see the house at least haha. Inside theres a woman that really wants to be Adrienne Barbeau, screaming at her son, and she locks him into a room. We see the locking of the door in slow motion. Then the camera lingers on the locked door for way too long. After the mother walks into the living room to meet her side piece that looks like Balki from Perfect Strangers. Balki has at least the 6th button on his shirt unbuttoned, and small boobed Barbeau makes out with his belly button for whatever reason. Soon they’re both killed by an unseen sledgehammer wielding maniac. The cops find the bodies and can’t find the boy so he’s presumed dead.
10 years (the magic number) goes by and a group of friends acquire the house to party in. The characters names aren’t important, like most slasher movies so I make up names for them. We have 80s WWF Hercules, Mike Danton from Deadly Prey, Joni she’s Danton’s gf and has Wayne Gretzky’s haircut, Brown haired guy, poodle headed blonde, pretty dark-haired girl, and Geraldo Rivera crossed with Johnny B Badd. Its obvious from the start that Joni and Chuck (Ted Prior aka Mike Danton) are the main characters. Hercules Hernandez is out of control and just a brute, he’s kind of gross but is somehow dating the pretty dark-haired girl. Poodle head and Johnny B Badd are dating? I think they are at least. We get another slow motion scene of Danton and Joni walking through a field together, not sure why. After this they show the group playing music, drinking and dancing. Poodle head might be the worst white girl dancer ever, its awful for a girl so attractive to move so bad lol. I wrote down “toxic masculinity drinking” basically each guy trying to top each other being pigs and slamming beers/liquor. Danton and Joni (whom is becoming a total drag) have a conversation about god knows what and the camera lingers on the wall for like 30 seconds after they walk off, dear lord.
In the morning we get another shot of the red house, actually the same shot of the damn house from before. Danton is outside playing guitar and it seems like he’s actually playing it, and he isn’t awful, he seems competent. Someone is watching him, and the camera goes into a tree, which is hilarious. Cut to inside where they’re having lunch, eating sandwiches. Herc shoves an enormous sandwich into his face, god this guy is gross. Danton dumps mustard on Joni’s head because women love when you mess with their hair. This starts a food fight, and I’m wondering why I’m doing this to myself. The blonde of course has to take a shower, because she’s blonde in a slasher movie. She opens the curtain to the shower and brown hair is hanging by a noose, she screams and he yells “BOO!” Ugh the horrible prank trope lol. We get another lingering establishing shot, I’m noticing a trend here. Now they’re all downstairs and these guys treat Joni like crap, why does she hang out with them? Danton says “lets have a séance!” Because that’s fun? He goes on to tell them the story of the boy, his mom and the lover, you know the one we already saw not 25 minutes ago? Basically this isn’t a séance Danton! Finally they get on with it and Danton is trying to contact the boy. Then you hear someone having a conversation with Danton, its actually brown hair in the other room with a boombox, how dumb are these people? Herc totally falls for it. Brown hair is killed with a knife through the neck. He is then dragged by the knife, which I’ll admit was kind of cool. Another shot of the red house, that’s the fourth time I believe! Johnny B Badd and Poodle Head are getting it on, or at least they want you to believe that since her thighs are only like 3 inches apart and he’s kind of wiggling on top of her. They finish and guy walks in, he stands with a sledgehammer about 5 feet away and they don’t see him? He moves closer and chokes Poodle and smashes Johnny B Badd in the chest with a sledgehammer.
Joni finds brown hair and does one of the worst screams I’ve ever heard in a slasher movie. Herc finds Poodle and Johnny B Badd and has little to no emotion in his voice. He then MOVES THE BODIES OF A MURDER SCENE, and GRABS THE MURDER WEAPON! My lord this guy is dense! They decide they have to keep watch while the others try to sleep. Herc takes the first watch, of course he falls asleep and when he wakes, the hammer is gone. Herc grabs a knife and goes looking for the killer. It is good to mention that they can’t leave because a mechanic took their van earlier to fix it. He finds the killer and he gets killed, naturally. Danton and Joni wake up and look for Herc. It was about this time that I started nodding off on the couch. They end up find the pretty girl with a bunch of knives in her. They see the killer, and it’s the boy, he’s still young like 10 tops. Danton kneels down and takes the knife from him, attempts to take his Richard “Rip” Hamilton mask off him and he gets slapped. Danton falls to the ground and boy stands up, morphs into a 6’8” giant…ok? Danton fights the killer and gets thrown. Joni grabs a clever and buries it into the killer’s clavicle and he just pulls it out. We get a hilarious camera shot within the mask, which is just amazing. Danton starts pounding the killer, and tackles him through a door. He then wrestles the hammer away from him and smashes the killer’s face. End shot shows what else? The damn house, but this time we see the killer in the window.
The plot is dumb, lets just say that. It is almost as cliché as you can get. How many slasher movies use a similar thing? At least 20 I’ve seen! If you’re looking for something original, this probably isn’t your kind of movie. The dialogue and acting is equally as bad. While I love Ted Prior, he’s not a great actor and he’s the best actor in this movie, which tells you what this is like. Hercules might be the worst actor of the bunch, he’s sooooo wooden and I’m thinking maybe he was just Ted Prior’s workout buddy?
Here is what makes this movie what it is: The direction/camera work. OH. MY. GOD! This movie has the worst cinematography I have EVER seen in a movie and I’ve seen Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park! The overly long establishing shots, the questionable framing, and the shot from inside the mask were all taxing. From the opening scene with the camera having to adjust its white balance and focus, then still having 30 seconds of establishment outside the house, I knew I was in for a ride. Why not cut the white balance/focus part? It isn’t’ like you didn’t stand outside for another 30 seconds showing the damn house! Along with those shots we get WAY too much slow motion. I’m all for slow motion in slasher films, it can help set the mood, think Friday the 13th the Final Chapter’s ending, that was effective! This movie uses slow motion on locking doors, walking through a field laughing, and shaking their head and pleading with the killer WITHOUT SOUND. I know this was shot on VHS and David A Prior’s first movie but man, this is rough.
The kills and special effects are low budget, but effective actually. There is enough blood to keep it interesting and believable at times. I have to mention the best part of the film. The music was amazing. So creepy and chilling, its obvious to me that the $40,000 budget must have been spent mostly on the music. The soundtrack was done by Marc Adams, Ted Prior, and Philip G Slate. Those guys? I give them a thumbs up, you saved part of this for me! Lastly the other charming/funny thing in this movie is the credits, its obvious that it’s the old VHS home video title font, white blocky font with that odd blackish outline/haze, which is great.
Sledgehammer is what it is. What do you expect with a super low budget movie shot mostly in the director’s apartment? Like I mentioned the music was great, the low budget look of it gives some scenes a creepy atmosphere but the lingering establishing shots really take me out of this movie. If you cut back on the lingering shots, the reused shots and the slow motion, suddenly a 87 minute movie gets whittled down to an hour. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but hardcore slasher completists, or people that love the Prior brothers. I give Sledgehammer a D-. I can’t go full F because Ted Prior is fun and the music is so solid and surprising.
