ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

MonsterVision99 "Sledgehammer" its an SOV slasher, its the infamous directorial debut of director David A. Prior and what a film to start with. When it comes to SOV horror "Sledgehammer" its probably among the most entertaining ones or at least the ones that have the most redeeming qualities, but as a legit horror movie it doesn't work at all.I like just how surreal it is, it doesn't try to ground itself in reality, instead, it creates its own mood and atmosphere, something I really enjoy in horror films, however, its also a severely flawed movie even by SOV standards, mainly because of the obnoxious main characters, all of them are unlikable idiots, they sink the movie really low and make it almost unwatchable.It started pretty decent but never became any more interesting, its predictable, cheesy, slow and dull but the tone its perfect for SOV horror. This is a really weird movie, there is fine line between genius and craziness, unfortunately, I believe this is the later.

Scott LeBrun This all sounds so comfortingly familiar. A young boy (Justin Greer) is locked in a closet so his mom (Mary Mendez) - obviously no candidate for mother of the year - can get it on, in peace, with her lover (Michael Shanahan). Very shortly afterwards, the mom and the lover get it with the title weapon. Fast forward ten years later, and one of the most obnoxious groups of young adults that you'll ever see makes it to the very same house for some hard partying. After we're made to watch a great deal of their tomfoolery, our psycho killer makes their appearance, once again putting a sledgehammer to good use.An early credit for "Deadly Prey" director David A. Prior, this stars Davids' hunky brother Ted in the role of Chuck, one of these merry morons. The acting from Ted and all others concerned is exactly as amateurish as one would expect it to be, but that doesn't mean it isn't entertaining. John Eastman hams it up the most. Overall, "Sledgehammer" is nothing special, and it may not appeal to slasher fanatics across the board because one, there's no nudity, and two, it's really not that gory until the big finish. All of that said, it's reasonably enjoyable in typical bad movie fashion.The main problem is that David A. Prior goes out of his way to pad the running time. "Sledgehammer" only runs about 85 minutes, but several minutes easily could have been cut out without affecting the movie. Still, this may add to the appeal for some in the audience. The inane antics of our intended victims go on for quite a long time, so if one is not amused by these characters right off the bat, just imagine having to put up with them for over 40 minutes or so.The gore might not be that much, but it's fun in a predictably tacky way."Blood Cult" may get erroneously credited as the first shot on video regional horror flick, but this one predates it by a few years.Six out of 10.

Sandcooler Ted Prior was a Playgirl Playmate trying to get into acting, his brother David uhm, just owned a camera I guess, and so a fruitful collaboration started that has been going on for more than thirty years now. Their absolute masterpiece is probably 1987's "Deadly Prey", a complete and utter rip-off to "Rambo: First Blood" that is just irresistibly entertaining in all its wrongness. That one I can really recommend, but "Sledgehammer" is a whole other story. This thing is one of the most boring slasher films I have ever seen, it's clear the dynamic duo still had lots to learn when they made this. For example, David Prior hadn't figured out yet how to turn off the slo-mo effect on his camcorder. He uses slo-mo for the most random things. Some slo-mo in the grand finale, makes sense. Every single death scene in slow-motion, that's pushing it but fair enough. But why would you use it when the scene is just people walking around in a garden or sitting on a couch doing nothing? Is this young David Prior's creative force kicking in and not having a clue what it's doing? Not that the movie would be any good at a normal speed, but at least it would be lots shorter. Occasionally there is some almost-suspense (the clichéd slasher scene where one character tells the killer's legend isn't bad), the opening scene is also quite atmospheric, but as a whole "Sledgehammer" just doesn't bring much to the table to keep you entertained. It also doesn't help that you'll constantly have to yell "just get out of the house!" at the screen, my throat is still sore from yesterday. If this led the Priors on the road to "Deadly Prey" I appreciate it exists, but that's the nicest thing I can say about it.

Lee Eisenberg With any slasher movie, you have to understand that it was never intended as the next "Citizen Kane". But even with that in mind, "Sledgehammer" - whose title basically explains the entire plot, if you can call it a plot - is truly the bottom of the barrel. For starters, it's obviously shot with a video camera, and probably a hand-held one. But even worse, the movie contains long stretches where NOTHING happens. They put up $40,000 for THIS?! Look, don't make me waste your time trying to explain how awful this movie is. It's not even entertaining. Just avoid this grade-Z atrocity at all costs.