Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan (2013)

Axe Giant:  The Wrath of Paul Bunyan

Directed by:  Gary Jones

Starring:  Joe Estevez, Don Haggerty, Thomas Downey, Amber Conner, Tim Lovelace, Jesse Cove, Christina Kopf, Jill Evan, Clifton Williams, Victoria Ramos, Chris Hahn

Format:  Netflix Streaming

Tagline:  This Tall Tale Is Killer



(out of 5)

    

     What is it about SyFy style monster movies that I love?  I absolutely hate bad cgi with a passion especially blood as I probably mention in every review but for some reason these kinds of movies just get a pass.  In fact I look forward to the cheese of their computer generated imagery.  I must say that this one did have some really shoddy cgi scenes for example any of the scenes with Babe the big blue ox but other than that the cgi was actually not so bad.  Using both practical fx and cgi really set this one above some of the others like it.  I also have a fetish for fairy tale/urban legends/superstitions turned into horror films.  So here we have Paul Bunyan the great axe wielding lumberjack who took down trees with just one swing of his axe. 

     So a group of boot camp wannabes head out in the woods for a little field trip of sorts, teaching them about life that sort of thing.  The kids have all had their fair share of legal problems but their biggest problem has just become a giant head chopping forest freak named Paul Bunyon.  See Paul Bunyon was not the man who we know from our books of fairy tales.  Paul was banished from the small local town close to where the kids are camping.  After he was banished a group of hungry hunters go out in search of Babe the blue ox when times get tough one winter in regards to food sources.  Once the hunters bag Babe they take her back to their cabin and cook her up over a fire.  Well of course Paul is out searching for Babe and when he finds her charred body over a

spit at the hunter's cabin he goes completely ape shit and kills them all with his axe except the very man "Grizzly Adams" himself who shot Babe right between the eyes.  Good ol' Grizzly Adams gets a tree saw through the head and boy was that kill a gruesome one. 

     So of course as I mentioned before this is the land where our group of outcasts decides to camp.  One by one they are all killed by the 15 foot monster.  The gore is great in this movie.  I can't say it's all top quality but it definitely didn't fall short with the red stuff.  One girl even gets chopped in half from her head to her feet.  I've seen a bunch of reviews trashing the hell out of this movie including my most hated site which I will not plug here because it's so "rotten" but I think most people critics or otherwise sit down and rate every film by the same standards.  Not me every movie has it's own standards and this campy fun type of film did very well in comparison to a lot of films of it's kind. 

   In the end I was more than happy with this one.  Yeah sure Babe looked like a video game effect and some of the gore was not practical and the acting was a bit sub-par but all in all considering I liked the movie enough to take it to the third hand print.  It's no award winner but for a good Saturday afternoon ball of cheese I'll take it!