Blades (1989)
A Killer What?
A lawnmower. A ridiculously large man-eating lawnmower, stalking a country club for victims. How? Why? Fuck you, that’s why!
Is It Any Good?
It’s wonderful. Blades is a note-for-note remake of Jaws, swapping out the tourist locale of Amity Island for a golf course, Sheriff Brody for a golf pro, and the giant killer shark for a giant killer lawnmower.
Blades is a Troma movie and while that’s usually a sign of a lack of subtlety, Blades is so wonderfully straight-faced in its insanity. Is a killer lawnmower preposterous, certainly, but the movie never addresses this absurdity on more than a surface level. The movie almost never winks or mugs for the camera, this is Jaws with a lawnmower and Blades is confident in the humor inherent in that premise.
And the humor inherent in this premise is a rich vein to be mined. Most notably the scene where the tiger shark is caught in Jaws is replaced with a push mower that is literally hoisted up on a crane and the scene where Brody and Hooper cut open the shark’s belly to determine that it’s not a man-eater is replaced with one where our golf pro walks into a garage where the mower is still inexplicably on a crane and cuts open the lawn bag to find only grass clippings, golf balls, and a Playboy.
It takes a few minutes to realize what the movie is doing but once it clicks in your brain the delight is seeing how familiar beats are going to play out in this absurd setting. Blades is a genuine delight.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
I would say buy but all physical versions of this are out of print. You can however watch it for free with an Amazon Prime account and it can be found on Youtube, legally, for free.