Savage Weekend

An early prototype slasher film written and directed by an unknown David Paulson, “Savage Weekend” immediately envelops us in a grim tale of psychological and relational discomfort – even before getting to its social ramifications – in which jealousies, anxieties, and sexual and thanatological impulses spill out into every dirty frame of every shot.

Despite an indescribably schlocky screenplay, the film finds its “raison d’être” mainly through its pervasive atmosphere of depravity, one not too far removed from the dilapidated rural landscapes Tobe Hooper is so fond of depicting. A blend of sex and violence, typical in later slasher films, is plainly front and center here, but with a clear predilection for the former over the latter (the splatter component is definitely limited, the special effects crude).

Critics at the time savaged it, and most people never even heard of this B movie that’s not without its bizarre quirks – the tango scene springs to mind – but it might still come as a welcome surprise, particularly for nostalgic fans of offbeat cult films that could only have been made in the 1970s.

Although shot in 1976, Paulsen’s film wasn’t actually distributed until 1981, and even then, absent the unexpected success of Sean S. Cunningham’s “Friday the 13th” (1980), it probably would have languished in perpetual obscurity.