Meatcleaver Massacre (1977) 1/2 (out of 4) Four students break into the home of their professor with the plan on scaring him but one of them decides to take it a bit further. The professor ends up paralyzed and unable to speak but even worse is that his family were brutally murdered. Soon the four students begin to suffer strange deaths and it turns out the professor is communication with an occult through brain waves.Also known as Hollywood MEATCLEAVER MASSACRE, this film is best remembered for "starring" Christopher Lee. Apparently Lee provided on screen narration for another film that never materialized so the producer sold the footage to these filmmaker who added it to the beginning and end of this picture. I guess you can understand Lee being upset over this but at the same time you have to wonder why he didn't ask to re-write the dialogue but what he has to speak is quite laughable and it really reminded me of the speech Bela Lugosi had to give in GLEN OR GLENDA? If you're going into this movie for Lee then be warned that he only has two brief scenes.The rest of the movie is pretty bad as it's clear no one had any movie experience and were just trying to make a cheap horror movie that could hopefully get into theaters and make money. I'm not sure if they succeeded in making money but there's no question that they made a very bad movie on many levels. For starters, the film was shot without much light so the majority of the scenes are extremely dark and to the point where you can't see what's happening. The screenplay really doesn't contain any logic as it's never quite clear why the students would kill the professor and what they do in the aftermath is quite dumb as well.The film contains some pretty bad performances throughout and if you're just hoping for cheap exploitation due to the title then you'll be disappointed as well. The murder sequences are rather bland and there's certainly not enough gore here to make it worth sitting through. There's really not too many good things that can be said about this picture but I am thankful that it only ran 79-minutes.

Christopher Lee was known to complain about having to appear in certain films, but he rightfully went farthest with this one (even taking the case to court, but dropping it due to the inordinate dent the whole would make to his financial situation) since he was actually duped into making a documentary about the occult when instead the footage was sold to the official producers of this stinker in order to add a marquee name to their substandard product! Well, I cannot recall when I last was this harsh in my rating of a film – but what else can you expect when the project's exploitative nature is worn so blatantly on its sleeves: apart from the fraudulent roping in of the star (who, naturally, only appears in bookends totally disconnected from the main feature other than that the latter's premise also involves the paranormal), the title is equally deliberately misleading…as not only is the titular weapon used a mere couple of times throughout (and, therefore, hardly the cause of the intimated endless bloodshed), but the intended parallels to THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) could not be more removed in both plot and artistic quality! Anyway, what we have here is a group of jaded University students who get so upset with what they deem time-wasting sessions (talk about life imitating art!) devoted to the occult that the quartet decide to pay their Professor a less-than-courteous visit at his home – where things inevitably turn brutal. However, much to their chagrin, the elderly man survives in a semi-comatose state (while his young daughter does not – as it happens, thanks to the meatcleaver)…and it appears that he indeed practices what he preaches, given that (even in his precarious state!) he is capable of willing a supernatural entity to exact revenge on his family's assailants.Everything about the film is ugly: from the protagonists (who would like to evoke the notorious Manson cult but they have no characteristics, good or bad, to speak of – other than the obnoxious leader, whose acting is at once over-the-top and abysmal) to the utterly dreary look and the messy pseudo-surreal nightmares preceding the spirit's retribution (one of which, at least, is effectively revealed to be no more than a childish prank!). At least, the film-makers were committed enough to adopt the 'kill by the sword, die by the sword' (or, in our case, meatcleaver) adage for the first villain's demise; otherwise, one is crushed by the bonnet of a car he is repairing (with the oozing blood looking very much like strawberry jam) and another, a part-time projectionist, has his current attraction mysteriously interrupted and replaced with footage of the group's assault on the Professor's home (the only other inventive touch in the film, if still ludicrous!) before being offed. A bald cop investigates both the assault and the subsequent murders, is smart enough to make the connection (to say nothing of the psychic link between patient and pawn, which he even relates to the gang leader in the hope of confessing his own guilt) – but is still unable (or, perhaps, willing) to save him from his come-uppance.Finally, it is worth noting that I was so bored out of my skull watching this that an unintentionally hilarious moment – showing one of the gang troubled by a guilty conscience, or fear of payback (it is unclear which), attempts to commit suicide by slashing his wrists but is suddenly brought back to his senses by the realization that he is already late for work – that the supposed drollness of the incident completely eluded me! Also, while the movie's running-time is alternately given as 85 (IMDb) and 90 (Cinemageddon) minutes, the print I watched (derived from "You Tube") lasted for just 79…which, apart from presenting no official credits, abruptly cuts off the argument being laboriously made by Lee at the epilogue!

Man, what can I say about this film...? First off, I laughed pretty hard with that sequence where the guy's about to commit suicide and then calls it off because he's running late for work. But this film is not a comedy.Secondly, I have to disagree with Coventry - my good friend who also wrote something about this film on these pages - when he said that "Funny Man" (1994) is a worse film than "Meatcleaver Massacre". I know I'm not supposed to comment on other people's writings on here, but I'm sure he'll forgive me. While "Funny Man" does star Christopher Lee in nothing more than a (rather similar) cameo, it's pretty clear that Lee knew this time what kind of film he was doing it for. Also, the two films are completely incomparable. "Funny Man" obviously is an intended horror-comedy that wants to be ridiculous & gory at the same time. Just imagine a film like Ken Russel's "Gothic" featuring a villain like "Rumpelstiltskin" or "Leprechaun" with a bad case of Freddy Krueger one-liners thrown in the mix. It has a few surreal sets, quite a bit of stupid humor and a bit of blood, splatter & guts in it. Admittedly, not everything works in this B-movie, but some stuff does, while in "Meatcleaver Massacre"......virtually everything results in below par dreck, meaning: It's actually a worse film. Furthermore, the film plays it dead-serious - I expected no less from this one - and that makes it all the more painful. However, I have a couple of good things to say about it. Mainly about some imagery and the way it was shot & edited. The 'dream sequences' prior to the death scenes had something to them. They were like sequences of experimental film-making edited into the film. They felt completely out of place, but I did find them the most enjoyable parts of the movie. Even had me thinking about the 'tripping scene' on the graveyard in "Easy Rider". The (rudimentary) editing, at times, features cross-cutting & the juxtapositioning of certain images.But the film itself, is complete drivel without even an attempt at a storyline to make it a bit more coherent. However, it still is the kind of drivel - barely, I might add - that is manageable to sit through. To me, it felt like "Death Wish" & "House on the Edge of the Park" (for some reason Larry Justin had me thinking of David Hess) teaming up with Lucio Fulci's "Aenigma", while possible directed by a senile Ed Wood on drugs. I realize that saying this, might draw die-hard fans of exploitation horror only closer to this film. And exactly for those folks, "Meatcleaver Massacre" might be worth a watch. Other people, just steer clear away from it. Also know as "Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre", this film is absolutely nothing along the lines of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", just in case you should wonder (and that's another sign of how shameless the producers of this wretched film were).While lacking a decent story, the whole film is pretty much nothing more than 3 (or 4, depending how you look at it) death scenes with useless filler material in between. As a bonus you get the violence against the professor & his family at the beginning of the film, which really isn't much to write home about either. They didn't even rape the daughter (just a quick shower-shot from behind, filmed through tainted glass). Harsh thing to say, maybe, but what else would sick-minded puppies look for in a film like this? They did kill the wife's dog called Poopers, though. Yes, it was called Poopers.The professor ends up in a coma with a fractured skull, but not without summoning a demon (Morak, The Destroyer! The Avenger!) to act out his vengeance. Now - probably thanks to the very low budget - the demon isn't show throughout the film, and this actually works for the better. In the death scenes, the villains are killed by an unseen force and those sequences look fairly imaginative. But some poorly executed blood & gore effects do diminish the over-all effect those kills should have had. Unfortunately, when bad guy Mason gets it near the end, the filmmakers do decide to show us a bit of the alleged demon, and they really shouldn't have. It looked like a toxic bum with a wig & bad make-up. Oh, what's that? This film tries to be clever at the very end? Well never mind that, as it's far too late already.As everyone knows by now, the movie's opening- & closing minutes feature Christopher Lee telling a couple tales of the occult, which bear no relevance to the actual film. I do hope he got payed for his work, regardless how his footage ended up in "Meatcleaver Massacre". And let's repeat something else that everyone already knows: There's no meat-clever to be spotted in this film. But, hooray, around the one-hour mark, there's a bit of welcome female nudity for pretty much no reason in particular. Anything else I might have forgotten...? Perhaps, if you should decide to watch it, try to watch it when you feel up to it, otherwise it might put you to sleep. It's not really a very exciting film.

Actually, Christopher Lee IS here, in a way. He is sitting at a desk and spouting some mystical hocus-pocus at the beginning and the end of the film. I was about to say "I hope he enjoyed a nice paycheck for this", but then I read the trivia section for this movie on IMDb and it seems that the exploitation of his name to fool the paying audience was not his idea and was done without his permission. Anyway, "Meat Cleaver Massacre" doesn't have enough story to support a feature-length film, and the killings are not interesting, memorable or explicit enough. As for the actors, I doubt most of them ever worked again in another film. Avoid this schlock, even if you are an avid horror fan. (*1/2)