SO, I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER (VIDEO/LASER, 93 MINUTES, 1994) THE title sets the tone for Thomas Schlamme's comic thriller, which is less a gentle swipe at serial killers than a great jab in the ribs. But it is funny in a frenetic sort of way.
Mike Myers (Wayne's World) suffers an almost pathological aversion to long-term relationships and finds absurd reasons to reject his lovers: Sherib was a kleptomaniac, Pam smelled of beef and vegetable soup. But when he meets Harriet, a beautiful butcher's assistant played by Nancy Travis, he decides nothing will put him off, not even the possibility that she is the honeymoon serial killer who cleaves her husbands into pieces.
Is she or isn't she? Travis is deliciously ambiguous. He marries her and the pair depart on the honeymoon from Hell. The movie careers to a comic-horror climax with amusing allusions to Hitchcock et alia. On the way there is much crass humour, as in the cameo of Myers' screaming Scottish dad (played by Myers in an allusion to Back To The Future).
Anthony LaPaglia puts in a delightful performance as a policeman bemoaning the fact that his job is nothing like the TV cop shows. Alan Arkin is brilliant as the police chief trying to oblige the fantasy. Charles Grodin also joins in the fun.
So, I Married An Axe Murderer is high-octane entertainment full of comically jarring oddities.
MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK (VIDEO/LASER, 85 MINUTES, 1994) BOB Balaban's romantic comedy may be a one-joke movie but it's quite a funny joke. Johnny Dingle (Andrew Lowery) so longs to take the girl of his dreams to the high school prom that he doesn't let a little thing like dying get in his way. Death doesn't part these lovers because he returns as a pale-faced member of the living dead to court her.