Bloody Axe Wound is a movie that had an idea and execution… but made so little sense that I spent the whole time wondering what they were even doing.

It’s about a town with a long-running slasher problem. It stars the appealing Sari Arambulo as the daughter of the slasher who is also a video store owner who makes slasher movies and sells them at the store only he doesn’t do that at all but he does kill teens circled in red in the yearbook. Or not? Maybe? He’s definitely killing people, I’m pretty sure of that. Anyhow, he’s feeling his age so his daughter tries to take over the family business… of killing people only it’s a VHS rental only it’s not…

There’s absolutely something to this film… mainly the daughter and her friends as a coming of age story. And the way it plays with slasher concepts… she realizes she likes these teens but her dad is old school and only sees vices deserving of a good slashing.

It’s a fun idea and it mostly works except it has such a dedication to whatever in hell it’s trying to do with the VHS store. I found it difficult to really engage with the story and characters when I was constantly wonder what the other half of the film was about. Is it about a family of slashers or people slashing kids to create VHS tapes to sell to keep the store alive? I don’t know. Whatever bizarro idea they were going for kept me thinking about IT instead of getting invested in the characters.

Not that it’s trying to be scary so much as a funny coming of age horror/comedy with a decent amount of fun and grizzly practical kills. There’s a good idea here but it’s constantly at the mercy of its unmoored headscratchers of unfocused idea. I walked out of the theater talking to the only other guy who bought a ticket, both of us wondering what we’d watched.

Wish I could say I loved this film but its messy weird ideas kept getting in the way. Certainly has merit and I liked the lead actress but it was far more confusing and unsatisfying than anything else. It’s confounding since they were going for something unique and that deserves credit.

Score: 75