Slegdehammer

Oh, Sledgehammer. You are considered to be one of the first SOV horror films ever conceived. Well, some other horror collectors and aficionados say that Boardinghouse or Blood Cult were the first. Honestly, who gives a rats ass. That's like heavy metal buffs bitching that Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin were THE FIRST METAL BAND(S) before Black Sabbath. You see my friends, it is true that those two bands did use more heavy or distorted guitar work before Sabbath even came to be, but Sabbath actually created the genre from scratch before "heavy metal" was even coined as a label for a musical genre in the first place.

Sigh.

I digress.

 Sledgehammer is one of the first SOV horror films to be released to home video and rental stores (back before the great black hole that is our greedy ass corporate influx destroyed the indie mom and pop scene that our country was built on in the first place) in 1983. Since this is my first actual post on here, and I haven't watched Sledgehammer in a tad bit of a while, this one isn't going to be 100% or really well written for that matter. Just fair warning for you stick stickley's out there.

This movie has a CRAP LOAD of slow motion. As padding and as a way to try to evoke an uneasy feeling out of the viewer. One of the slow motion scenes has Ted Prior (of Playgirl fame) extremely slowly putting a can of beer on his girlfriends head to balance it as they walk to the house so they can start partying. Another scene is insanely pointless as you hear them make fun of each other as they unpack the van they drove in and THE CAMERA FOCUS'S ON THE PILE OF LUGGAGE GETTING THROWN ON THE GROUND. What the sweet jesus?! Really? Ok. That's interesting. PADDING.

They finally get in the house. The guys are being dick's to one another and to their respective girls. Relationships have never changed as time has passed. Anyway, Ted Prior has a really fucked up (and I mean piss drunkard fucked up) face and says "gentlemen, I think it's about time we get pretty shit-faced." He then proceeds to drink some sort of whisky and shit beer right after each other. What a boss. Everyone dances like idiots.

I forgot to even mention the whole reason for the ginormous, sledgehammer wielding apparition, ghost guy. Basically, the kid's mom, the kid and some nutsack are at the farmhouse years and years prior to the Ted and friends showing up to goof off. The mother locks her kid in one of the closets or bedrooms or whatever so her and Mr. Peanut can have a good old time spanking each other instead of him. The kid then takes it upon himself to smash their skulls in with a sledgehammer and then the movie starts. Yeah. No real tie in folks. Just one huge, dump truck sized plot hole after another. That's how this film rolls.

Let's get back on track. Ted's beefcake ass plays an acoustic guitar outside the barn and then we cut to probably ONE OF THE GREATEST FOOD FIGHT SCENE'S IN CINEMA HISTORY. I'm pretty sure it goes on for at least 7-8 minutes. No joke. You have the red headed guy shove an entire freaking sandwich in his mouth in about 10 seconds. The whole table is littered with bottles of liquor and people get mayo and mustard dumped on their heads. So epic. Easily my favorite and most entertaining part of the movie (and that's pathetic).

Good old Teddie decides he want's to have some "real fun" so he turns out all the lights and tells everyone the story about what happened at the beginning of the film. Everyone seems to be into it. But old Stripes is in the other room with some half-assed boom box rig that can play weird noises through some speakers that are in the house. Pfft.

Sledgey comes down the stairs and stabs stripes in the neck and then gives him a sweet floor- down decapitation. What a nice guy. Basically the whole rest of the film is Sledgy knocking the cast of the movie down with his hammer one by one. Pornstache and his blondie girlfriend decide to take each others clothes off while this is all going on and they get obliterated as well. How quaint. You also get to witness the hammer appear and disappear in a corner of the house a couple of times and Ted Prior does some pseudo wresting moves on old Sledgy. He should've stuck with porn for women.

All in all, if you're a fan of extremely low budget gar-ditch from the 80's, Sledgehammer does not disappoint. It has Ted Prior, a disappearing sledgehammer, tons of pointless slow motion for film padding and one of the greatest food fight scenes of all time immortalized on vhs/dvd for anyone to rot their brains with. Now go make me a sandwich so I can shove the whole thing in my mouth in under 10 seconds.