FALL BREAK (1984)

FALL BREAK (1984)

Tagline: Their horrifying vacation was no day at the beach!

(Horror, Thriller, Probably The Rustiest Refrigerator Ever Filmed) [R]

Note: This movie’s title was later changed to THE MUTILATOR, for marketing reasons. Clearly, that sounds scarier than FALL BREAK. This movie never got an MPA rating, but is on streaming services under TV-MA which is essentially a [R] rating. 

That's strange. My dad's battle-axe is missing.

In this one Ed is a young boy trying to make his father happy when he decides to clean his father's rifle and accidentally fires it killing his mother in the kitchen. You would think this would be ultra-traumatizing for Ed, but instead Ed Sr. his father is scared for life. Years later Ed decides to go to his father’s fishing house to close it up for the season at his father’s request. Only his college friends invite themselves to go also for a few days on the beach. Ed gives in and takes them with his girlfriend Pam and their friends Ralph, Sue, Mike, and Linda. It doesn’t take long before Ed’s guests start getting gruesomely picked off one by one. Will anyone survive FALL BREAK?

First off, one in this movie is doing any real acting but that isn’t their fault. For most of this cast, it was their first and only film. You have to pin that on the director, but he might have been going for precisely what this cast gave him. If I am going to pick someone who probably did the best, it has to be Ruth Martinez who plays Pam. Apparently, MUTILATOR 2 is coming out soon and Ruth is listed in the cast for that, but outside of that, this is the only movie she has ever done. Matt Mitler (DEADTIME STORIES) is decent I guess as Ed and he is still acting to this day doing mostly B-movie horror and voiceovers. So there’s that. Connie Rogers shows up as Sue. I wish she would have gotten more screen time. This was also her only movie. Morey Lampley plays Mike and apparently didn’t get along very well with the rest of the cast. This was his only film also. This was Bill Hitchcock’s biggest outing as he has been in a couple of other films including CAT’S EYE, but that was uncredited. He is okay as Ralph in this one. Some of the dialogue is pretty cringy, but I can’t say it’s any worse than FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER. Fortunately, the dialogue doesn’t ruin that movie or this one.

The effects are actually decent for a low-budget slasher. One thing this movie does is ramp up the gore over most B-movie slashers. This doesn’t mean that some of the deaths aren’t almost funny because the acting is so silly. This beach house they are staying in has the rustiest refrigerator I have seen in my life. Sorry, I just had to point that out because wow, it’s bad. 

When it comes to the score, they took an interesting approach. In some parts it sounds like the only thing getting mutilated is a bass guitar. The soundtrack is meh. 

Cinematically I thought this was actually on par with some films that are more highly regarded from the slasher horror genre. Yes, it’s campy, and no we really don’t get to the part where the “why” this killer is doing what they are doing makes any sense whatsoever, but this is the 80s and cheese is king. I will say that if you don’t mind some particularly rough dialog and high school play-like acting, this movie might be one that you could add to your Halloween-Horror-O-Thon playlist. These days it’s going to be under the title THE MUTILATOR. I like the FALL BREAK title better. 

Overall this one gets a 4 out of 7. Not giving away the entire plot in the opening scene and at least trying to get better performances out of the cast would have helped this thing out. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF BUDDY COOPER AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.