Just in time for Beltaine we're dropping in on the merry residents of Summerisle for a look at Anthony Shaffer's The Wicker Man from director Robin Hardy. This 1973 horror movie is a pivotal feature in the folk horror tradition and presents a daring departure from common horror movie tropes, choosing to set the movie in broad daylight with a color palette of primary colors and lush greens instead of the flashing thunder and shadows of night. The air of constant menace is replaced with a cast of common rural people who seem to be having the time of their lives in the pagan paradise of a community that celebrates the old gods. Starring Christopher Lee at his most charming and charismatic, The Wicker Man is a triumph of weird horror and is a May Day tradition in the house of Bring Me The Axe!

The story follows Sgt. Howie, an English cop who drops in on the Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate a the disappearance of a young girl but he finds the strange community of heathens uncooperative in his investigation and suspects that she may have been a victim of human sacrifice. There's a sacrifice, alright, but Howie has no idea to what lengths these people will go to in order to secure a healthy harvest.

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This week we take on George Romero's Martin from 1977. Is it a vampire movie? Maybe if you squint at it just right. Martin doesn't fit neatly into any genre and for that we're at a loss to properly define it. But one thing is for sure, this is our favorite non-zombie Romero movie. It's a very weird, very European movie with artsy tendencies and a good idea of where George Romer's career may have gone had he not been repeatedly dragged back to the zombie well.

In Martin, the eponymous young man drifts from house to house, a ward of a highly superstitious family who pass him around as a burden that must be contained lest his bloodlust lead him to mayhem and carnage but here's the problem: Martin doesn't seem to actually be a vampire. He walks around during the day, holy symbols and vampire wards have no effect on him. But he is no less monstrous, being an actual serial killer. The question remains, does Martin kill because he's been told for so long that he's a monster?

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This week we're bringing it home to Boston for a look at the 1981 slasher movie also-ran. Night School. Similar to the many, many slasher movies that dropped that year, Night School struggles to commit to the stalk and slash body count mayhem that was dominating box offices and instead lands closer, remarkably closer to an Italian giallo. When it's not shamelessly stepping on Psycho's toes it reminds us a little too much of What Have You Done To Solange and What Have They Done To Your Daughters.

In Night School a killer stalks the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, decapitating women. Their targets all share one thing in common, they're all students at the same night school, sharing the same head hunter obsessed anthropology professor who is busily seducing each one of them. It's up to smarty pants Boston PD detective Judd Austin to put the pieces together and crack the case before the killer strikes again!

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