The Mutilator aka Fall Break - 1984
Directed by Buddy Cooper (and John Douglass)
North Carolina regional movie.
By sword. By pick. By axe. Bye Bye.
Great name with a great poster, everything you need in an 80’s movie
We open with Mom making a cake for Big Ed (her husband)’s birthday. While their son, Ed Jr is cleaning his father’s guns - complete with a sign.
After pointing the gun at his face he points it at the door and pulls the trigger firing the gun and killing his mother just in time for Big Ed to come home.
He shoves Ed Jr away then stalks after him, slaps him, then chases him out of the room with the same gun. Ed Jr runs away leaving Big Ed to pull his wife into the gun room and pour himself and her a drink… yeah… makes sense.
Big Ed takes the sign Ed Jr left on his gun cabinet ‘Happy Birthday Daddy! All Cleaned By Me!’ and places it on his wife while continuing his drink.
Cut to: We’re going on a fall break! Song.
A group of college kids sit in a bar complaining that it’s Fall Break and they don’t have plans. Probably because what the actual hell is Fall Break? School just started! What do you need a break already for?
Our victims, I mean characters… characters, for this film are:
Ed Jr (mc) + Pam (call the police). Ralph (joker) + Sue. Linda (curly hair) + Mike (tall and tan).
Ed apparently has a telephone call… at the bar… they apparently go there a lot. It’s a call from his dad.
While he’s talking Pam (was it Pam?) explains the opening of the movie to us, I mean to her friends. Which is probably very healthy for Ed Jr…
Ed Jr is unhappy. Apparently his father is having another one of his spells, the kind of spell that comes in a bottle. Ed Jr, as a witchcore Sapphic I can tell you, that does not really narrow it down.
Big Ed wants Ed Jr to close up his condo for the winter. Ed Jr complains. Oddly enough it seems like the two Eds, despite having very similar names, don’t get along. Wonder why…? Guess we’ll never know.
The group smile at each other and have an unspoken agreement as they oddly pass the list of chores around and nod… they want to go to the condo at the beach. Ed Jr agrees but he has a “bad feeling about this.”
The next day the pick up Ralph, the group joker, who makes a joke about Sue not being able to join them but it turns out she can. WHOA that was a hilarious gag. So funny. I can’t stop laughing. What a riot.
Ed Jr can’t get his car to start - and it does break down on the way to the beach. Which according to my 80s horror handbook is a requirement.
OMG THE SONG! It’s like… it’s like an 80s sitcom entry. This movie plays like if Three’s Company was a horror movie… well vaguely a horror movie. If murders happened in Three’s Company. This is a comedy with brutal kills.
Oh we’re getting a full song… ok. I’m hear (lol) for it. Sadly this song is not on Spotify. Criminal.
Ralph goes inside to get a beer and sees a sign stating that Senior Citizens get a discount. The clerk says you have to be 65 to get the discount when Ralph asks, to which Ralph states he’s in law school and that’s discrimination…. To a elderly black man. The gull. Ralph suggests, being the kind man he is, that he’ll get a second six-pack if the teller will give him the 10% off to which the teller agrees. After Ralph leaves an older woman appears and asks if another smart ass college kids talked himself into buying 2 six-packs instead of one. They both get a chuckle and it was worth the joke.
Back to the song! F*ck yeah! Travel montage! OMG and the song has a sax solo. The saxiest of instruments.
(we’re goin on a, a fall break, walking hand in hand in the moonlight! We’ll breath that sweet salt air. I swear we’re never far!)
They get to the condo at the beach and find the door is open - or rather unlocked.
Ralph is hesitant to go in stating something doesn’t look right. Ed Jr comes up and goes inside to look around stating that “it’s nothing, just a little mess.”
The rest of the party follows him in. It is a lot more than a little mess. I want to clean it! I want to clean it so much!!!
Ed Jr thinks his dad and his drinking buddies had a party at the condo and left it a mess. There are bottles everywhere. Like think of a counter and just imagine it covered with empty alcohol bottles. Probably double that and you’re getting close.
Pam notices one of the glasses has condensation and asks when they left… she’s smart. Ed Jr has no idea. She suggests they call the cops, someone could have broken in.
Ed Jr doesn’t think anyone broke in but also the island doesn’t have cops - they are on the mainland and only come to patrol at night. OH great set up. A+ screenwriting.
They find another room - like a trophy room sort of. Ed Jr says his father likes to joke that’s hunted everything but man. Though… he does have a framed photo of a dead man on his wall in his trophy room. Ed Jr explains his “dad ran over him with a ski boat.” they all stare at him - Ed Jr gets that uncomfortable kind of smile and assures them it was “an accident”.
Meanwhile, Linda puts a pair of sunglasses on a deer head… not sure Clyde likes that but whatever, looks kool. Then she picks up a gaff and asks about it. Ed Jr explains… omg terrible foreshadowing.
He goes on explaining other weapons and his father’s odd and terrifying behavior.
Then he shows them to the bedrooms upstairs. While the camera holds on a weird red mask while ominous music plays. Oh right this is a horror movie not a film about Ed Jr unpacking his childhood trauma.
Oh hey Big Ed is in a… closet in the garage… sleeping? Smoking? Idk. He’s watching them maybe.
They also notice Big Ed’s battle axe is missing. This makes Pam more nervous. She wants him to report it. Girl what is your obsession with the cops? Like… they don’t do anything? Is your dad a cop? Ed Jr promises to call his dad in the morning to check and see if he has the axe.
The couples begin to couple. This is an 80s horror movie after all.
Awe Big Ed is sleeping with his battle axe… and dreaming of strangling young Ed Jr… and shooting young Ed Jr… and slitting young Ed Jr’s throat
Meanwhile, the youth are laughing and drinking by the fire.
Mike and Linda go out to the garage and look around, while Big Ed watches them.
Gotta say the quality of this film is fantastic. Just on a side. It’s really really good looking - a lot of regional horror is very degraded and has bad restorations. The Mutilator is worth a blu-ray.
The group eats then Mike and Linda go out for a walk on the beach. Really padding the runtime but they’re cute so I’ll allow it. They guys in this movie are awkward but kind and seem like real people which I appreciate, that's not common for 80’s horror which often depicts guys as perverted jerks.
After a while the rest of the group goes out on the beach to look for Mike and Linda who are now in a pool. Oh and a thunderstorm is rolling in.
They get into the pool - to a song that sounds like the beginning of Cheers… suspicious. We watch their feet as the strip down to swim in the over cholorine-ized pool.
Big Ed watches the youth walk down the beach.
Mike and Linda play in the pool.
Pam is a virgin and it’s a whole conversation through this movie that I’m choosing not to focus on for mental health reasons.
Big Ed enters the pool area. Mike and Linda play pool tag… which is a thing I guess.
Linda is slow motion grabbed from underneath as she floats. Mike pokes his head up then goes back under water while Big Ed gets away with Linda’s body and steels his clothes. OK it’s important to note this pool water is kind of opaque - like I think I read they poured milk in it so it wasn’t clear. It still doesn’t really visually make sense that Mike didn’t catch Big Ed but that’s ok. We’ll move on.
Mike gets out and is lead to his doom with a trail of his and Linda’s clothes. All the way to the garage where Mike gets got. He gets a… some kind of buzzing machine to the torso. It’s very violent and bloody. Mike screams as he dies. The effects look fantastic.
Big Ed pulls Mike into the closet with Linda and stabs their heads up on spikes to hold their bodies up… like mounting them on a wall.
Meanwhile - again - the two couples are still walking the beach. They run into a cop on the beach who warns them to go home because of the storm. Ok they also talk about who was or wasn’t at the condo. OK Pam is annoying as hell. That’s just like not how you talk to cops and you don’t know shit is missing. Also his dad was at the condo… that’s just not hard math. Chill the fuck out.
The cop is investigating a possible something at somewhere on the beach while eerie music plays. Or he’s looking around the condo. Which I don’t know if he should be doing that, and Big Ed agrees. And for his transgression of being nosey he gets a wooden fence post to the face then decapitated. DUDE the severed head looks great and they hold on the impalement as the cop bleeds and gurgels. It’s impressive work really. Plus as a regional release, they didn’t have to worry about ratings.
The college kids return to the condo for a rousing game of the friendship ender itself: Monopoly.
Pam has had enough of Ralph’s tomfoolery so he suggests Blind Man’s Bluff to increase his chances of survival.
Everyone gets a beer - that’s the important part according to Ed Jr
Turn out the lights
Whoever is ‘it’ stays in the house
The rest go outside and have a beer
Then the person playing ‘it’ hides himself and everyone comes in to try and find him. When found you find him you stand or lay next to them. So that when there is only one person left stumbling around in the dark.
I… don’t get the game. You’re in college… keep at Monopoly cowards!
While playing Big Ed comes in and lurks around. Visually it’s a bit confusing because the film is lit so that we can see what’s happening but the actors are pretending it’s much darker. So when they’re hiding it seems like they are aware something is wrong but then it turns out that’s not the case they’re just playing the game.
This game goes on for so damn long.
Pam is still worried about Mike and Linda but Ralph assures her that they’re probably fine.
Ralph has been trying to get Sue to bed all night.
Pam tells Ed Jr that she likes him but she’s not going to sleep with him that night. Good for her.
Big Ed puts the cop on display with the rest of the trophies… bodies… victims… let’s move on.
While getting intimate Sue stops Ralph. She tells him to go lock up and check for Mike and Linda. Ralph rushes to check… and by rushes I mean it’s to sped up footage with the like Benny Hill music. When the footage slows but down he complains about having to lock the doors to the house he’s sleeping in with all the male privilege I’ve ever heard.
Ralph continues his voyage to look for Mike and Linda to the garage whilst talking to himself. He goes to nail the closet door with Big Ed in it shut thinking Mike and Linda are in there but stops realizing that joke is too far.
THEN! Big Ed comes out with a…. Pitchfork… thingy. Again, great effect! We see it go in Ralph’s neck, then Big Ed sticks it through the door and it’s on screen the whole time. Looking gorey and awesome.
Sue is upstairs in a nightgown that leaves nothing to the imagination, waiting for Ralph, who I assume will not be showing back up. She decides to go looking for him.
Pam keeps thinking she’s hearing something and trying to wake Ed Jr up but when he doesn’t wake up either time she just lays back down… like girl what?
We see Big Ed has entered the house to get his… harpoon gun? Is that a thing?
Pam leaves to room to go look for the others. No one is in their rooms.
Oh hey Big Ed has a hook now… oh like the cover of the movie.
Pam wakes Ed Jr up. He likes his sleep.
“All the kids are missing.” I have NEVER called my collegiate peers kids, even Freshmen when I was Senior. Weird AF.
Oh hey Sue is still running around without a bra. She’s going to feel that tomorrow.
She goes back inside to find Pam and Ed Jr.
Pam takes charge. Everyone get dressed. Get a jacket on. “We’re leaving.” Go off queen. I respect you now. You’ve been redeemed.
Sue doesn’t want to leave without Ralph but Pam is adamant. They agree to take one last look but split up. Pam and Ed Jr go one way. Sue is immediately grabbed by the throat and taken to Big Eds work table where he… HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD WHERE IS THAT HOOK GOING………… I don’t want to see it! I don’t wanna see it!
OMG then the takes the Battle Ax and kills her. FUCK BIG ED you did not need to go that hard. What did she do to you?
The last 10min or so is Pam + Ed Jr vs Big Ed…. which might seem unfair but Big Ed is crazy and that counts for 3 people.
Pam and Ed Jr go into the dreaded garage and find Sue on the work table, real dead. Decapitated.
Pam screams to cover her up. Ed Jr is freaked. He shakily opens the closet but unfortunately does not find a tarp… he finds the four bodies on display…
They see the shadow of Big Ed with the Battle Ax.
Ed Jr pushs Pam into another closet and blocks her inside.
Ed Jr and Big Ed fight. And but fight I mean Ed Jr gets knocked the fuck out real quick. Way to go Ed Jr. Big Ed takes his legs and wrists together then raises the Battle Ax.
Pam breaks out, screams “leave him alone’, then starts throwing weapons.
Big Ed stabs Jr with the Battle Ax in the leg.
Pam stabs Big Ed with a pocket knife (I think)
While Big Ed is incapacitated Pam cuts Ed Jr loose. They limp to the car but it won’t start. It’s an 80s movie after all. But oh now Big Ed ain’t dead! He’s attacking the car. Ah!
At one point I think Ed Jr screams: “We’re gunna die! We’re gunna die!”
Big Ed has Ed Jr by the throat but Pam uses the cigarette lighter to burn his hand and the car finally starts.
OMG THE COPS SHOW UP! I don’t know if i’ve seen that in a 80’s horror movie.
Oh but they’re slow and Big Ed is still attacking. So, Pam does the only thing she can do. She shifts into reverse and back that bitch up cutting Big Ed in half.
It is at this point that Ed Jr looks back and says the best line in the movie… “Jesus Christ. It’s my dad.” LIKE GIRL you didn’t notice for the past 8 minutes you were fighting your dad… how?!?!
Anyway officer molasses shows up and tells Pam to pull the car forward. This reveals the great effect of the bi-sected Big Ed.
The officer goes to look but Big Ed has one last kill in him! He grabs the officer and severs his leg with the Battle Ax. He dies laughing.
Cut to! A sad looking Ed Jr limping in the hospital to Pam’s room. We close on them holding each other and looking at the window.
But to credits with the greatest song in a horror movie ‘Fall Break’ and OMG they have bloopers! Horror movies should roll credits to bloopers more.
This movie is amazing. 10/10 no notes.
I can’t wait to see the sequel when it’s finally distributed.
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