What kind of college curriculum involves lectures on the occult, the professor muttering Satanic incantations in the dark while projecting details from a gory 15th-century painting of the avenging demon Morak, destroyer of destroyers?
Amazingly, Professor Cantrell's rather irregular course on demonology seems to be popular with his students, apart from Mason Harrue (Larry Justin), who isn't happy about being pressured to turn in a term paper on the subject. To teach Cantrell a lesson, Mason and his gang break into the professor's home and slaughter his family, leaving the teacher in a semi-vegetative state, unable to speak.
Mason and his thrill-kill pals think they have gotten away with murder, but they shouldn't have messed with an expert in the occult: even in his debilitated condition, Cantrell is able to summon Morak and send the demon to seek retribution.
Behind this film's sensational title lies a tedious piece of amateurish trash that doesn't even have the good grace to feature a meat cleaver. The opening mean-spirited murders promise something wonderfully gritty and grimy, but the remainder of the film is simply boring, the deaths of the gang members unimaginative and frustratingly lacking in gore. The direction by Keith Burns (going by the pseudonym of Evan Lee) is lifeless, and his actors are, without exception, wooden and unconvincing. According to Wikipedia. Burns was replaced by legendary craptastic director Ed D. Wood Jr, which speaks volumes about Burns' film-making skills.
For movie masochists who decide to give this one a whirl, there are two versions available: the original cut, which goes by the title Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre, and a shorter, re-released version with the title Meatcleaver Massacre, which features a prologue and epilogue by Christopher Lee, shot for an entirely different movie! Either way, the film sucks.
1.5/10, rounded up to 2 for the hilarious ending in which Morak, depicted as a three-eyed monster with massive fangs in the painting, turns out to be a hairy man covered in green slime.
