Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan (2013)

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

None of these actors should ever be allowed in front of a camera again, I hate that they still give Joe Estevezs work just because his brother is Martin Sheen. Seriously some of the worst acting I have ever seen. Amber Connor was the worst of the bunch, I have never watched a movie before that an actors acting was so bad it actually made mad. The look on her face when her dad showed up towards the end was some of the worst acting in the history of acting. I love campy horror, this isn't even that, it is just bad. The special fx are utter crap also, I hope that the fx company listed is a fake and they don't really list this excrement in their portfolio. This movie makes I spit on your grave seem like cinematic genius.

Let's get this out of the way first thing: Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan is a bad movie. Badly acted, badly directed, bad CGI effects (but, of course, you knew that as soon as you saw this listed on the SyFy Channel). And yet, it's entertaining in ways that its creators probably never intended. A group of teenage hoodlum wannabes are punished for their crimes...by being sent to camp. Their punishment comes in the form of drill-sergeant survivalist cop who clearly should not allowed within 100 feet of minors and a psychiatrist who wants them to get in touch with their feelings. For a teenager, I can't imagine which of them would be worse company for a weekend. As befits a horror movie that needs a body count, you will hate nearly all of these people and want them to die within 15 minutes. Don't worry, you'll get your wish. Pretty soon, the campers are getting pruned by a 15-foot-tall freak who appears to be developmentally disabled, until you realize that, somehow, he was smart enough to make or buy an double-headed ax with a 10-foot handle (C'mon, those things can't be easy to come by!) that's just big enough for a guy his size to use without looking like he's playing with a toy. He's given a back story familiar to anyone who's a fan of "maniac-in-the-back-woods" horror films. The movie plays out exactly as you expect it to. It "stars" (and I'm using the word in its loosest possible interpretation) Dan Haggerty and Joe Estevez. It's a hallmark of how low this movie sinks that its best-known performers are a TV actor whose last significant role was in 1978 and Martin Sheen's cheaper, less talented brother. Haggerty's role is little more than a cameo (and the scariest thing about this movie is, that apart from his hair and magnificently-sculpted beard going from blond to gray, he doesn't appear to have aged a day in the last 40 years). And Estevez spends the entire movie acting as if Gary Busey and Nicholas Cage are inside him, battling for possession of his immortal soul. There's nothing even remotely original about this movie: from turning a folkloric character into a generic psycho killer to the contrived excuses for why nobody's cell phone and car seem to work when they really need them, to the cookie-cutter characters whose odds of survival are inversely proportional to how annoying they are. Even Estevez's third-act freak-out seems oddly derivative. But if you approach this movie with appropriately low expectations, the cheese factor is good for a few laughs.

Group of indistinguishable young-offenders are sent to a boot camp for delinquents where there meet a murderous Paul Bunyan. Apparently shown on Syfy channel first (I didn't see it until it appeared streaming on Netflix today), it does have the vibe of their brand of low- budget shenanigans, but it could've been much worse as thankfully the putrid stretch of The Asylum (who didn't make this, but does countless Syfy films) isn't anywhere near this one. That's about the only positive I can say for this pedestrian, mundane, silly, badly CGId little film. Might be (somewhat) passable for a rainy-day Saturday afternoon but not more more.Eye Candy: Jill Evyn is briefly topless

On a camping retreat in the woods, a group of teens unwittingly incur the wrath of the legendary Paul Bunyan and must try to survive the giants' fury and knowledge of the surrounding area as he hunts them down one-by-one.This here is a rather fun and enjoyable enough effort that has some pretty enjoyable moments going for it, as well as the the traditional problems associated with these kinds movies. The fact that the film manages to feature some of the same problems with the CGI being of just abysmal quality here with almost no attempt made to integrate it into the scene logically or hide it's usage makes for a curious inclusion of it overall. As well, there's several plot threads within that don't make a whole lot of sense as there's several story lines within that really could've been dropped without deviation from the main story, and as a whole drag the opening out a little more than necessary. Still, there's some fun to be had here with some fantastic stalking through the forest as the towering figure over the tree-tops chasing them is pretty intense and the use of the forest is a good setting for it all. There's a lot of moments with an actor in a prosthetic suit interacting with miniature models of the surroundings that are mixed incredibly well with the real- size footage that makes the CGI all the more curious as it's far more convincing than possible here and why not just keep it all the way through is rather curious. With some brutal kills resulting in some nice gore shots and a fun, action-packed finale to boost it up, there's some good stuff in here.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and Brief Nudity.