Why so much hype?

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Writer / director David Paulsen ("Schizoid") got something of a head start on the slasher craze with this offering. It predates Carpenters' "Halloween" by two years; it was filmed in 1976, but not released until 1980. It's just weird enough - and kinky enough - to be watchable, although it may not appeal to some hardcore devotees of the genre as it takes a long time to begin its murder spree, and even at that point there's really no gore to speak of. Instead, what we get is a lot of odd touches and interesting character details, not to mention a fair bit of humour.Marie (Marilyn Hamlin) goes on a weekend excursion to the country with her new husband Robert (Jim Doerr), her younger sister Shirley (Caitlin O'Heaney, "He Knows You're Alone"), and their openly gay friend Nicky (Christopher Allport, "Dead & Buried"). Soon, their good time is ruined by a psychopath wearing a goofy Halloween mask.While there are no real A-list stars here, there are certainly some very recognizable faces. O'Heaney has some seriously sexy moments (viewers will definitely appreciate the doses of nudity in this film). Allport is amusing, even if his character is somewhat stereotypical. It's great fun to see David Gale of future "Re-Animator" fame as a lumber man providing wood for a boat that Robert is building with some associates. Top notch character actor William Sanderson is a vivid, unkempt redneck / red herring. A very young Yancy Butler makes her film debut. It's not surprising that Hamlin never got much acting work, because she's simply atrocious here.There might not be enough here to completely satisfy some slasher fans, but it remains rather offbeat for its 88 minute time and it is worth a look.Six out of 10.

Savage Weekend (1979) * 1/2 (out of 4) Five New Yorkers head to the country so that one of them can check on a boat that he's having built. Once there they settle in but soon a psycho in a mask shows up and starts killing them off.SAVAGE WEEKEND might seem like a Friday THE 13TH or HALLOWEEN clone but this here was actually made in 1976 but not released until 1979. With that in mind, it's easy to see why this thing wasn't released because outside of a few good things there's really not too much here worth watching. The biggest problem with this picture is that it's pretty much deadly dull and you're just waiting around forever for something fun or interesting to happen but you just keep waiting and waiting.The boredom is the film's biggest fault as we're introduced to some slightly interesting characters but absolutely nothing is done with them. We get incredibly boring subplots that just drag the film down even more. The characters are pretty much what you'd expect from a one-note film like this. You've got the divorced woman fearful of her ex but she's still with her new boyfriend. You've got the slut friend and of course there's a good-looking man there for her. The fifth member of the group is a gay man who is basically just comic relief but I will admit that he's the best thing about the film. Not only do we get some funny scenes with him but he also manages to beat up some rednecks in a local bar.The murder sequences are all mostly forgettable as there's not enough memorable violence or gore to recommend this to horror fans. The actual mystery is kept fairly well but at the same time you don't really care who is killing everyone. The film ends with a decent machete versus chainsaw battle and I will admit that the set-up of the picture pays off nicely at the end. Still, SAVAGE WEEKEND is a forgettable horror film that not even the non-stop nudity can save.

Several couples head upstate to the country to watch a boat being built. Unfortunately they are stalked by a murderer behind a ghoulish mask.Firstly the movie opens to hillbilly music even tho it's NY state. The twanging gets faster and faster and then stops and just restarts! Huh?We see a woman dressed in white running then stopping. For some reason in the middle of the forest, there is a running Buzz Saw! Huh.2?Then there is a guy with longish hair and binoculars who picks up the buzz saw. Huh.3? The woman doesn't bother to run as the buzz saw man gets closer and closer. She just stands there! Huh.4?Cut to NYC.This 2 minute scene tells you where you are headed. And it won't be good. It's a very slow, complete with an extended slow moving gay scene in a bar that ends in a fight which no one tries to stop, and leaves you hoping the gay guy is the first to be killed because he's so freaking annoying. He's a poor version of a gay man playing it way over the top and being so condescending in the process.I should also mention that the movie was supposedly made in '79 but looks very much like it was made circa '72.So there seems to be a crazy man in the woods and no one will hear you as you scream even tho they are like 50 feet away. This part of the movie does produce some decent T&A, but that's not saying much for the film's improvement.Oh, and BTW, be sure to look for the one actor who has the hard-on that you can see right through his clothes! No joke.The film just sort of rambles and is so slow and nobody seems to really run away when the killer is after them...and why that hillbilly banjo keeps coming in when the film is set in NY is beyond me. It's not until 2/3s into he movie that the masked killer dude is introduced. By this time, you just hope an atomic bomb explodes and gets rid of the whole lot. It was a complete waste of celluloid. And a bigger waste of my time.

Struggling through "Savage Weekend", I was instantly reminded of "Deliverance". Not necessarily because the film also takes place in a remote backwoods area or because there's banjo music playing during the opening credits, but merely because this is such an incompetent and amateurish production that it looks as if it were written and directed by that infamous mentally underdeveloped Banjo Kid from that classic film! This movie is bad, and not just low-budget bad but really BAD to the third degree. We're talking incoherent screenplay, insufferable characters, long stretches of boredom where absolutely nothing happens, predictable twists, laughable killing sequences and utterly senseless dialogs. There's already something very wrong with the title of this dud. "Savage Weekend" is misleading because there's no savagery going on at all. 45 minutes of sheer boredom and then a handful of lousy and bloodless murders does not equal savage in my dictionary. "Sleazy Weekend" I would have accepted, since there's really a lot of sex and female nudity, and "Nonsensical Weekend" would have even been better! Two couples and one flamboyant gay boy head out to a woodsy region to check up on the construction of a boat owned by one of them; a wealthy stockbroker. A considerable amount of time later, we witness someone putting on a reasonably unsettling mask and going on a killer rampage. One of the boat's workmen – Otis – has a grisly past and behaves suspiciously, but the film tries too hard to make him look guilty so you quickly know that it won't be him. There isn't a single moment of genuine suspense or horrific excitement and even the sex sequences start to look tedious and work on your nerves after a while. That's just never a good sign. According to the trivia section on this website, the finished film remained shelved for several years. Well, in my humble opinion, it should have remained shelved for all eternity.