Arrow Video put out José Ramón Larraz's Edge of the Axe earlier this year and I loved every minute of it. While Deadly Manor isn't quite as good, it's still plenty strange. Just when you're lulled into near-sleep by the numbers slasher plot, something absolutely and wonderfully bizarre happens, like the flashback to the bikers causing the accident or shocking nude photos of living, dead and perhaps not so dead people that show up throughout the film. Seriously, if nudity bothers you, this is not the movie for you.

On their way to a lake that no one can pronounce, some kids pick up a drifter with a dark past - don't they all have those - and head to an abandoned mansion that has a car shrine up front, coffins in the basement and a closet full of scalps. And oh yeah - the same gorgeous yet evil woman has a photo up every few inches.

Everybody is soon about to be snuffed, but you knew that just from the first few seconds of the movie.

Greg Rhodes is in this movie and Ghosthouse, which would make a great movie to pair this up with if you're looking for a fun evening. Jerry Kernion, who is Peter, has had a pretty nice career after this debut. And Jennifer Delora, who is pretty fun as the killer, was the second woman in Miss America history to be dethroned after her nude scenes in Bad Girls Dormitory became fodder for those easily upset. She's also in all manner of genre favorites like Robot Holocaust, Suburban Commando, Bedroom Eyes II and Frankenhooker.

Seriously - hang out for the first hour or so of this movie. You'll be rewarded with something really special when it comes to the final girl and the last twenty minutes or so.

My personal motivation to watch "Deadly Manor" sooner or later (although now I wish it had been much, much later) solely was because the guy in the director's chair was the Spanish-born José Ramón Larraz. Larraz made some really brilliant and atmospheric Gothic horror flicks back in the 70's (like "Vampyras" and "Symptoms") and even the partly American- produced horror junk he forged during the 80's (like "Edge of the Axe" and "Rest in Pieces") rank very high on my list of guilty pleasures. "Deadly Manor" was Larraz' last horror accomplishment, but perhaps he should have retired just one film earlier. It's an extremely mundane and painfully boring cinematic ordeal. Apart from an already dead body during the opening credits, absolutely nothing happens throughout more than an hour of running time! Moreover, the screenplay never at one point indicates where it might be heading towards. The film naturally takes place in a large ominous manor, but there's nothing even remotely suggesting that either the place is haunted or that there's a maniacal killing prowling around the estate, or anything. All we know is that there's a wrecked old-timer car in the garden and that the suspicious hitch-hiker is on the lam for the police. The six teenagers spending the night at the mansion (because it was too late at night and they couldn't find their camping site) are literally waiting to get massacred in patience. I only watched this movie yesterday and already I can't recall any of the death sequences, so that can only mean they weren't memorable and definitely not gory. One thing I do vividly remember is that "Deadly Manor" does not contain any gratuitous sleaze or sickly undertones. Only boredom, boredom, boredom… The end-twist, as in: the clarification of the manor's history; is reasonably original and effective, but it comes far too late. The last ten minutes form a worthwhile swan song to Larraz' career, but we best not mention the first eighty ever again.

Deadly Manor, from Spanish director José Ramón Larraz, begins like almost every other slasher from the preceding ten years or so: a group of young friends - all stock slasher characters, right down to the overweight joker - take a trip to a remote lake for a weekend of camping, smoking weed and high jinx. Along the way, they pick up a hitch-hiker, Jack (Clark Tufts),who says he can help give them directions. But after a flat tire delays their journey, the gang decide to take a detour off the beaten track where they find a seemingly abandoned manor, perfect for sheltering from an impending storm.

That's the clichéd characters established, the creepy setting all done and dusted (well, maybe not dusted: the place is covered in the stuff),and at least one likely suspect once the killings begin. All we need now is for the couples to wander off to have sex, and the grisly killings to start, with lashings of juicy gore effects to keep things interesting. Except that this isn't quite how things pan out. As expected, Larraz delivers some gratuitous nudity, albeit in a sex scene that turns out to be a dream (or a wet dream, more likely),but when the bodies start to pile up, nearly all of the killings happen off screen, or with minimal need for special effects (just a splash of fake blood here and there). And what is a generic slasher without inventive, gory deaths? Disappointing, that's what!

Eventually, in tried and tested fashion, the not-so-happy campers are whittled down to the final girl, at which point we learn who has been committing the murders and why -- and the reveal is particularly daft (I won't spoil it for you: it's one of the few fun moments in the film). Larraz wraps things up by having the police turn up in the nick of time to save the sole survivor and cart off the killer. No reasonable explanation is given for the two coffins in the basement, the collection of scalps in a closet, or the bodies walled up next to the fireplace.