Main cast: Tiffany Shepis (Adrienne), A Michael Baldwin (Sheriff Mathews), Sal Governale (Lou), Shawn Hernandez (Victor), Ashley Marie Zgabay (Heather), Elizabeth Redpath (Jamie), Ben Warner (Tommy), Will Morgan (Kevin), Gage Tijerina (Larry), Danielle Jones (Ashley), Cory W Ahre (Bill), Keefer Barlow (Marilyn), Lyndsey Case (Michelle), Kelly Byrns (Bonnie), Amber McKenzie (Caroline), and Kile Moore (Paul)
Director: Jeremy Sumrall

Pickaxe starts out pretty interestingly. A couple is looking for the skull of infamous mass murderer Alex Black, who was killed after the townspeople had had enough and banded together to rise against him. The guy wanted to do this for the fame and glory, and his girlfriend persuaded him to pause as it is dark and they are in the middle of woods, Like all sane couple in such a place and situation, she just wants to shag, and with him being a simple creature, he agrees. So they do it, and the show happily shows plenty of female skin. Then she wanders off almost naked, and he finds the skull. Oh wow. She gets completely naked now and then takes an axe to him before casting some magic words to bring out the killer’s resurrection.

Don’t ask me what happens to her, because we then jump to the present. At this point, things are still interesting, as the movie introduces two survivors from that fateful night everyone tried to take down Alex Black: Sheriff Mathews and Adrienne. Adrienne is now a drunken recluse with PTSD. Okay, this could be good… and then the movie switches gears and introduces a bunch of adults playing young characters that they look far too old for, and these imbeciles act like drunken fools and complete twats. Excuse me, have I stumbled upon a different movie by accident? For a long time, this movie is all about these fat and ugly people acting like imbeciles of the first order, while Alex occasionally shows up to quickly do off some of these morons at a pace way too slow for my liking. I don’t even get the satisfaction of seeing these vapid unlikable turds die because the death scenes are way too short and what little gore that is present looks more like a cheap art project.

Now, I know not everyone has the money to create an amazing visual experience, but even then, at least have a decent script, you know? This one, though, just shoves at my face a bunch of uniformly unlikable idiots that are cobbled together from the worst tropes associated with teenagers in a horror film. If we want to get all down and dirty with the clichés, at the very least give me a likable obvious final girl to root for, at least, but no, everyone here is just disgusting.

I don’t know what Pickaxe wants to do. Alex Black isn’t in the movie long enough to make any impression, there is no standout final girl like slasher movies tend to have, and for a long time, the movie has no plot aside from “fat and ugly people behaving badly”. This movie is like the brainchild of someone that wants to have his own Friday the 13th or Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, only to write a script that is completely devoid of the charm and ghastly gory of those movies. Then, the money runs out and the poor fellow has to resort to hiring anyone willing to work for free burgers, while stealing stuff from local donation bins to turn these things into props. So there you go.

Why watch this when the original slasher classics and the countless painful reboots and remakes of these classics are still around? This one feels like an amateurish effort to emulate better films of its ilk, and one would feel somewhat dumber for having seen it.